


Ascendancy

by LaMorenaReina



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: BAMF Karen Page, F/M, Frank Castle is Bae, Identity Issues, Karen + Frank Team Up, Karen's Past, Slow Burn, eventually, kastle - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-18
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2018-06-02 23:44:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6588052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaMorenaReina/pseuds/LaMorenaReina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karen Page's relationship with control becomes all the more tenuous as she explores a singular and inconclusive friendship with Frank Castle, wages her own war against Wilson Fisk, and has to start answering some unwanted questions about her past that lead to new conclusions about her identity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Control

**Author's Note:**

> *I do not own anything related to Daredevil, The Punisher or these characters.
> 
> Hi, loves. I hope you enjoy the first chapter of this (intended) multi-chapter saga. I am a seasoned reader of Fan-fiction. This is my first foray into writing a story for public consumption. By consumption, I do not mean profit. I love these characters and this pairing. As has been stated many times before me, I will go down with this ship. 
> 
> A lot of how I work out the inner layers of Frank and Karen + their relationship happens through dialogue and character interaction. Those are staples for me in good stories, especially stories that explore the relationship of two characters. This chapter has a good amount of Karen/Matt interaction. Don't worry. Kastle goodness is on its way! I love feedback. Enjoy!

As Karen Page stares into the full length mirror in her bedroom, she considers the idea of control, the idea of being able to impose a direction over her life and know that it would actually obey said direction. It is absurd, really, the concept of control. It completely violates whatever laws of nature that dictate the circumstances of her existence.

She watches her reflection as her lips lift in a wry grin. Lifting a lock of hair up to inspect, her head tilts to the side in curiosity. After recent events Karen Page is convinced that there are many things she cannot control. Though, in all honesty, she learned that rather elementary lesson quite some time ago. Thoughts of her brother and parents come swiftly to the surface and she easily pushes them away, flicking her hair back behind her shoulder.

She gazes at the length of her hair in the mirror with a slight downturn of her lips, already vexed by the idea forming. She feels like she’s stuck in some inane romantic comedy, on the cusp of employing a familiar trope. When had she become the woman looking for the ultimate metaphorical fuck you to give the world?

She eyes her blonde locks again and sighs. Damn. She’s about to become a cliché.

___

It starts with the haircut: shoulder length bob, golden locks traded in for red. In her less self-deprecating moments, she can appreciate how the cut accents her high cheekbones.

It all starts with that fucking haircut.

She smiles a bit bashfully when Foggy whistles at her during one of their nights at Josie’s.

“Damn, Miss Page,” he’d said with an appreciative nod.

Then somehow it evolves into a new wardrobe: jeans, t-shirts, blazers, and flats. Because now she spends much more time walking around the city, evading the people she pisses off while she’s chasing down leads. She even starts wearing her glasses more. Figures it makes her look less intrusive, less like she has her nose in people’s shit. Fact is, she does have her nose in other people's shit. 

“You look like a damn journalist. ”

Karen doesn’t even look up at Ellison as he places a cup of coffee on her desk.

“Is this a petition to bring back the pencil skirts?” she asks, typing away frantically at her laptop.

This week: a story about human traffickers who make a hobby out of dog fighting.

“No. Now you can actually effectively run away from all the shit you get into.”

She smirks. “I’ll wear skirts and blouses for Throwback Thursdays.”

“Deadline’s at 10pm, Page.”

“Yes, boss.”

A week later her face is impressively blank when she learns that the men she had written about were found dead, shot execution style during a meeting. The fifty men and women brought into the country for forced labor were found after an anonymous tip was given to the police.

Curious.

The ten or so dogs were mysteriously dropped off at a shelter designed to nurture and rehabilitate abused animals. 

Her thoughts linger on a conversation she once had with Frank about pit bulls during one of her visits to discuss his case. She pushes that memory away after a moment. Thinking about Frank makes her ask too many questions. She may never get the answers to those questions.   
____________

The training starts. 

Far be it from her to discontinue carrying her .380. Of course this is _after_ having retrieved it from the police _after_ her tiny apartment had been shot to hell.Of course, that was  _after_ Frank had thrown his body, warm and solid, on top of hers to shield her.

Yes. After that. 

She is delighted that she can finally afford a new apartment. It's no penthouse because how could it be on her salary?  She settles on a spacious one bedroom, filling it with all the bright furniture and art she can afford. She recognizes what she's doing. She sees her attempt at offsetting the darkness of her work and the shit she uncovers on a regular basis. Perhaps she's further running from the darkness of her past, desperately grasping at anything that resembles light.

Be that as it may, it doesn’t stop her from enjoying her bright teal couch and grey throw blanket.  A lavender scented candle burns on her coffee table as her eyes flicker between the manicure tutorial on her laptop and Jennifer Lopez’s battered character in _Enough_.

It occurs to her as applies a second coat of burgundy polish that aside from wielding a handgun, she has no idea how to defend herself. Not well at any rate. She would undoubtedly get her ass handed to her in a real fight.

She's dialing Matt Murdock on speaker before she can even comprehend what she's doing. 

He answers before she can convince herself to hang up.  _Shit_. _Shit_. _Shit_.

“Karen. Is everything okay?”

His voice is calm, relieved almost. There is no hint of anger or frustration over the fact that she has avoided him for months. 

She finds that she is very grateful for that. 

“Matt. Hi.”

“Hi.”

“You don't sound angry. I'm relieved. And surprised that I'm relieved."

He sounds surprised. “Why would I be angry with you?”

She shrugs even though she knows he can’t see her. She imagines that he can hear the shuffling of her shirt on her shoulders. He can probably hear the way her hair meets her shirt as her shoulders bunch up. 

“Because we haven’t talked in a while.”

A pause. “What I told you is a lot to process,” he says. 

She bites her lip. She won't respond to that because it's true and they both know it. 

“Would you be up for meeting tomorrow? There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

He doesn't hesitate. “Sure.” 

“’Good.”

He is silent for a moment and it feels too long.

“…Karen?”

“Yes?”

“Am I going to walk out of this meeting without your friendship?"

She lets out a breath. “No. No, Matt. That's not what this is. ”

“Good. I just don't...good." 

She promises to bring coffee and croissants to his place.  She wants to talk in the privacy of his home because she thinks he probably feels safe there. 

“Does noon work? I imagine you’ll be slightly recovered from kicking ass by then?”

She hopes he can hear the lightness in her tone. She prays the lightness doesn't give away any of the sadness she feels about their freindship and how everything is different now.

He laughs lightly. “Yeah, I’ll make sure I’m up for you.”

She nods. “See you tomorrow, Matt.”

“Goodnight, Karen.”

She spends the rest of her night waiting for her nails to dry and watching Jennifer Lopez fuck up her estranged husband. She wonders how much it would hurt to get punched in the face. Thoughts of Frank Castle’s perpetually bruised face come to mind.

She pushes the image away.

___

She shows up to Matt’s door the next day with two coffees, one black and one with cream. The bag of warm croissants is squished under her arm. Before she can maneuver all the things in her hand to knock the door swings open.

Matt wears grey sweats and a black t-shirt. Her eyes immediately scan him for any indication that he has been out fucking up the criminals of Hell’s Kitchen. No bruises or cuts. At least not where she can see them.

He smiles as if he knows what she is doing and motions for her to come in.

“The croissants smell great,” he says.

She brushes past him quickly, surprised at the lack of elevated heartbeat that felt so familiar when in close proximity with Matt. The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. Daredevil. Who the hell saw that coming anyway? She almost laughs aloud at the thought. What she really wants to laugh at is her inability to see the truth. Who else besides a vigilante would come into work black and blue with flimsy excuses?

Instead of laughing she holds up the bag. 

“Got you a black coffee and at least one croissant. Maybe two if I decide not to eat them all. I skipped breakfast."

He smirks. “I need to watch my figure anyway.”

She rolls her eyes. “Can you hear my eyes rolling in my head?”

His smirk remains and he shrugs. “Yes, actually.”

She shakes her head. “Wow."

“Tell me about it.”

He takes the coffee from her and their hands brush. He leans against the back of his couch while she settles in a chair at his table. Again, no elevated heartbeat. _Interesting_.

“You cut your hair.”

He is looking at her, his gaze as unfocused as always, but inconveniently perceptive. As a reflex she pushes her noticeably shorter hair behind her ear.

“I’m a ginger now too.”

“Foggy told me. Stunning. Pretty sure that’s the word he used. Says the color really suits you. I’m sure you look beautiful.”

She smiles and realizes abruptly that she is grateful to be near her friend. He would never be anything more than that again. It has become more and more apparent to her today. She is surprised that she does not feel sadness over this fact. 

“Thank you, Matt.”

He nods. Karen takes that moment to really look at him, to see him. She sees grief. Lament. The air of despondency settles around him like a fog that won’t lift. She can see it in the subtle way he slumps against his couch. He is grieving the beautiful woman she had seen in his bed. Elektra. That was her name. He loved her, loves her. Karen aches for him even though he lied to her more times than she could count. 

“You’re staring at me."

He smiles at her lightly. 

“I am,” she confirms taking a sip of her coffee.

He looks towards the wall. He is silent for a while.

“What do you see?”

She'll be honest. “Sorrow.”

He doesn’t respond immediately. She isn’t even sure he will.

“I’m sorry about Elektra. I know it seems like I wouldn’t be, but I am," she says. 

He shakes his head in disbelief.

“Here you are apologizing to me about a woman you saw in my bed. The same woman I neglected you over.  You are a rare breed, Karen Page.”

She takes another sip of her coffee. “You have no idea."

“Karen, I’m sorry. About all of it. All of the shit I did to hurt you. About not telling you about what I do at night. About neglecting you and Foggy during Frank Castle’s trial…”

She ignores the way her heart constricts at the mention of Frank. There she is. Always ignoring it. Always ignoring him.

“…I’m sorry about not caring for you, not loving you the way you deserve to be loved. I'm sorry for lying to you.”

She takes a deep breath. She can ignore what she thinks about Frank Castle. It hurts less that way. She can hardly bring herself to even admit why she doesn't want to think about him. Thankfully, this isn't about Frank. This was about her and Matt and it feels so damn prudent to lean into her feelings about their history. So she does. She dives headfirst into all the hurt, anger and disappointment. All the ways she felt abandoned by him, used by him. She gives herself permission to feel it all. Obviously, she has spent many days thinking about this and mulling over what went wrong with them. Her previous attention to it is probably why it comes and quickly evolves into something like understanding and forgiveness. 

“You hurt me,” she says.

He nods. “I know.”

“You lied to me. Repeatedly."

Her voice is calm. She’s looking at him directly.

“I did.”

“You convinced me that I was important to you and then you chose another woman over me.”

He looks sad at her words but makes no attempt to belie her point.

She has imagined this moment. She has imagined what she would do or say. She had anticipated being immensely angry and unable to do anything but lay her anger before him hoping to wound him as much as he wounded her. Except she is not angry.  Everything is out there between them and she has no desire to pick it up again, to take it back and let it settle into the recesses of her heart. For whatever reason, she is perfectly willing and ready to relinquish it. It startles her but it also makes her feel much lighter than she's been in months. 

“Matt, I forgive you. I do. I forgive you for lying to me and pushing me away. For leading me on, even if you didn’t know you were. God, I forgive you. For all the things you need forgiveness for..." She pauses, "About being Daredevil though, I’m not sure it’s one of those things.”

Matt shifts. “It’s not one of the things you’ll forgive me for?”

“I don’t think you being Daredevil is something you need me to forgive.”

At this, he looks up with surprise.

“Really?"

“Do you think you need my forgiveness for that?” 

“No.” His reply is immediate and sure.

She shrugs. “Right now, neither do I.”

And there is something about her declaration that has him standing up slightly taller. It is then she realizes that part of his grief isn’t just over losing Elektra. Part of his grief was about losing her too. 

“You have my friendship. And so does Daredevil. I don’t know all of what it means to be friends with Daredevil. Maybe I’ll regret it later. I don’t know. I barely know what it means to be friends with Matt Murdock. There is so much about you I don't know.”

He stands very still for a moment, directing his gaze to the floor. Then he nods as if he can’t bring himself to speak. After a few moments, he looks back in her direction.

“Is this what you came to talk to me about?” he asks.

She sets her coffee down, suddenly nervous. She knows Matt can hear the spike in her heartbeat.

“No, that’s not why I came. We needed to talk about that and I assumed we would but I was prepared to ask you what I’m about to ask either way.”

“You’re nervous,” he observes. “What’s wrong?”

“It is extremely inconvenient that you can hear my heartbeat.”

A grin. “I can imagine.”

She sighs. “Nothing is wrong, per say. I just need a favor. An _on-going_ favor.”

“Okay.” He starts to raise the cup to his lips.

Before he can get the coffee to his lips she blurts out, “I need training!”

He pauses almost comically. “...You what?”

Her cheeks are warm and she’s cursing herself for having asked so desperately. She takes a deep breath to regain some footing.

“Self-defense. Combat. Whatever you want to call it. I want to learn it.”

If Karen has to guess she would say he downs the rest of his coffee simply so he can think of a way to respond to her seemingly ridiculous request. He lowers the cup and then raises it to his lips again, already forgetting that he had finished his drink. She sighs and fights the temptation to assume what he is thinking. She waits, filling her mouth with the buttery croissant to keep from speaking.

“You want me to train you?”

She hastily swallows.

“Or find someone who will. It'll happen whether or not you help me. I need to know how to defend myself. The need arises often for me.”

“Karen…”

“You can’t see the glare I’m giving you, but imagine it and use this as an opportunity to stop talking."

He does; leaning back further against the couch and clutching the back with hands she was sure could break it if he really wanted to.

“Save me the speech about being careful and not doing anything dangerous. Not throwing this in your face, but you do run around at night and get beat to hell. Not to mention you beat the shit out of people. You don't ask anyone's permission to do that."

“Karen, that’s not…”

“Are you asking for my permission to do that?”

He waits a beat, blinking. Once. Twice.

“No. I’m not.”

“Exactly. But you are asking me to help you by keeping your secret. And I will, Matt, you know I will. I will protect your identity because you are my friend. So support me as a friend by training me."

His hands are still clutching at the back of the couch. He remains silent and brooding, one of his fingers tapping out a rhythm.

For a moment, she thinks of the way Frank tapped his trigger finger against the top of his coffee mug back in the diner as he gazed at her from under his baseball cap, noting all of her embarrassingly frenetic energy.

This was, of course, _before_ he had killed two men less than ten feet from where she was hiding. This was _before_ he had rescued her from the Blacksmith. This was also _b_ _efore_ they had both decided to take a turn in their relationship, effectively closing the door between them.

She briefly wonders what Frank would do if she asked him to train her before deciding that it doesn’t matter. Frank is noticeably absent. Again, she pushes thoughts of him away because by now she is masterful at ignoring the existence of Frank Castle.

Her gaze sharpens on Matt as he runs a hand through his hair and shakes his head. She is prepared to further argue her case before he says:

“Okay, Karen. _Jesus_. Okay.”

__________

The first time she shows up to the abandoned gym, the one Matt now owns, he asks about her running history. Her laugh is incredulous.

“Who says I have one?”

He shrugs.

“Sucks for you. It will make the next few weeks hard as hell.”

She frowns. “Why?”

“Good combat requires you to be in shape, to be able to actually make it through a fight if you have to. Which means you need good lung capacity. Which means you need to do cardio.”

“Ah," she says. 

_Why am I doing this again?_

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” 

“You don’t seem overly hesitant about it,” Matt says.

He sounds surprised, perhaps.

“I gave myself two rules for this. Rule number one: don’t complain.” 

_Aloud._

He smiles. “Rule number two?”

“Keep going even when hurts.”

She tries not to think about the other parts of her life where that feels true.

___

For the next few weeks she runs until it hurts. Then she runs some more, taking time during her lunch break to get in some miles before diving back into her research, writing, and tailing.

All the while she’s hearing stories of criminals being executed, victims being rescued, whispers of the Punisher being alive. She never asks Matt if he runs into the Punisher. She finds it highly unlikely that he hasn’t, but they never talk about it. It seems to be an unspoken rule, for the time being, that she and Matt don’t talk about the details of his night job. She refuses to ask. It doesn't matter anyway. Frank Castle is dead to her.

So she keeps her mouth shut and she’s still running. Two weeks in, Matt adds strength training to her routine. It hurts and leaves her limping home, but she doesn’t stop. A few times she runs so hard that she throws up afterwards. Matt tells her that he likes her commitment, but to take it easy. She needs her body to work with her, not against her. She listens. She’s never liked throwing up anyway.

She cooks more and eats less takeout at Matt’s command. She even buys a crockpot because, let’s face it, she’s an investigative journalist. She barely has time to sleep, let alone cook.

Once she makes a joke about the dark circles under her eyes.

“Make time to sleep. Poor sleep leads to sloppy fighting, slow response time. There is a point where even adrenaline doesn’t overshadow that. You get sloppy and you lose. You are doing this because you don’t want to lose. Sleep more.”

She starts to protest about the demands of her job. Then she remembers her rules. She doesn’t say anything. He notices.

“Your body is your weapon, Karen. Stop treating it like shit. Either that or expect it to fail you when you need it to work for you.”

She sleeps more. Sometimes that sleep leads to nightmares and sweat and muffled screams into her pillow as she’s waking up. Sometimes it’s just blank and dark. She has a bottle of melatonin sitting on her dresser and she invests in a stainless steel teakettle for nights when she needs to be relaxed by a cup of chamomile tea.

She rarely allows the water boil to the point where the kettle whistles. Sometimes she’s frightened by the loud noise even when she knows it’s coming. She wonders if she has some mild form of PTSD. She remembers Frank’s aversion to using PTSD as a defense strategy, remembers his respect for those who experience it.

Some nights she dreams about Frank. She dreams about his crooked grin. She dreams about shattered coffee pots and guttural cries before shots are fired. She dreams about white skulls and big guns and roof tops. When she wakes up in the morning, she runs.

She runs hard and fast until her lungs burn.

 


	2. Impetus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karen's life gets slightly more complicated which leads her to seek outside help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, friends! I present to you chapter two. It was my intention to get it done sooner, but alas life happened. I am already mostly done with chapter three. Be looking for it later today or early tomorrow. 
> 
> Frank is making his debut this chapter. I know you'll be frustrated that there isn't a lot of Kastle interaction in this chapter. Don't worry. Most, if not all, of chapter three is Kastle. Thank you so much for the Kudos and comments. I love them. Feedback is lovely.  
> ______

Karen has been compelled by many things in her life. She knows the drive of passion. She knows what it means to be galvanized by conviction and principle. She's been aroused to action by terror so deep, so profound, that it settles in your bones and leaves you feeling like you'll never know safety again. And more times than she dare admit, she's been actuated to savagery when presented with the threat of danger. Her dreams of James Wesley affirm that.

She also dreams of her brother and the crunch of metal against a Sugar Maple. What is most startling is the sporadic presence of Frank Castle in the back seat when the car goes off the road. Sometimes he reaches for her, trying to shield her from the impact. Other times he just meets her gaze in the rearview mirror and nods with understanding before everything goes black. When Frank shows up in these dreams she never wakes up screaming afterward. She just aches in a way she cannot explain. 

Later, she won’t be able to name the true impetus for seeking out The Punisher for help.

___

She is in the process of investigating an extensive laundering scheme the first time she gets a package. She notices the envelope the minute she walks into her apartment; yellow, unmarked, 10x13 inch. She regards it curiously for a moment before the alarm settles in.

She _never_ gets packages in her apartment. They are always either left in her mailbox or outside of her door, never inside.

She immediately reaches for the gun in her purse and backs out of her apartment quickly. She scans the hallway, which is empty save for the random bicycle and shoes left by doors. She checks to see if anything is out of place and realizes that she wouldn’t know.

_“Learn how to think clearly even when you are afraid and surprised, Karen. That’s when it counts.”_

She takes a deep breath and listens for any noise that might be coming from her apartment. Nothing. This is either a good sign or a bad one. She raises her gun and slowly inches her way back into her apartment. She takes the gamble and eases the door closed with her foot. She has eliminated any chance of her neighbor's unsolicited concern. She also makes it harder to escape if she needs to. She knows this. She doesn't want to answer questions about why she's holding a gun if nothing is wrong. Similarly, she has no desire to lie. 

She has enough lies stacked up by now. 

A cursory inspection tells her nothing about whether or not she is about to fight for her life. She takes another deep breath before moving deeper into her apartment, turning on every light she can get her hands on as she goes. Her apartment is free of any signs of forced entry. She hurries back to the envelope and takes several pictures of it with her phone before snatching it off the floor.

She expects another death threat. She almost longs for it. She is damn near pining for something to direct her anger and fear towards. The scathing remark ready on her tongue burns with anticipation. 

It dies the moment she recognizes the newspaper article about the death of her brother. The yellow sticky note attached to it reads: _You aren’t the only one who can do research, Miss Page._

Karen barely makes it to the bathroom before she throws up her lunch. That night she dreams of shadows in her apartment, cars spinning out of control, and her brother’s mangled and bloody face. Frank stays away from her dreams this time.

She wakes up screaming.

___

She wakes up well before her alarm. She musters the energy to get out of bed, utterly drained by the fear of being unmasked in ways she never thought she would be. She throws on jeans, a plain white shirt and grey oxfords. She sloppily throws her hair into a ponytail and foregoes all makeup and breakfast. No point in eating if she can’t keep it down. The envelope sits on her kitchen table. How a package so light and harmless can manage to fuck up her entire sense of stability is astounding. She hides the article in the bottom drawer of her dresser.

Hiding things so clearly works for her.  

On her way to work she pauses to question her super as he sweeps the entryway. Victor Vazquez, a genial Puerto Rican man with a soft smile and a charming penchant for “white girls who speak Spanish”. Sometimes he sweeps out of his apartment, loud salsa music following him, and teaches Karen how to move her hips in a way that makes her feel weightless and free. He is kind to her in the most refreshing way. His compassion defies the way New York sometimes succeeds in destroying any vestiges of hope.

With almost herculean strength she gives him a smile and greets him in Spanish.

He looks up and returns her smile. “Karen, Corazon. Beautiful as always.”

She forces a gentle laugh and leans in conspiratorially.

“Did anyone ask about my apartment? Maybe ask what apartment I live in? I think I have a secret admirer.”

The smile she feigns is coquettish.

Mr. Vazquez winks. “Wouldn’t surprise me. Pretty girl like you.”

“So you didn’t see anyone?” Karen presses. She keeps the desperation out of her voice.

He shakes his head and pats her arm. “No, mi querido. Sorry.”

She gives a noncommittal shrug and pushes her hair behind her ear.

“Just wanted to see if I could figure out who it was. I think I owe you another batch of cookies soon though.”

“What old man in his right mind would say no to that?” He winks again.

This time her laugh is genuine.

___

She spends the next three weeks oscillating between agitation and downright terror. Three weeks go by without another package. She takes no comfort in this. It only serves to make her more anxious. And that anxiousness, borne out of her inability to predict what is coming next, infuriates her. She feels utterly exposed, completely bare to an unknown antagonist.

So she runs faster and punches harder. Perhaps envisioning the person taunting her as she trains with a standing bag has a certain sense of banality to it. As if she cares. More often than not the punching bag has her face. That’s when she hits the hardest. Matt notices the moments when her fury leaks into her swings.

“There is a rage behind your hits. Why?”

She hammers the bag harder at his question. Jab. Jab. Hook. Jab. Jab. Hook. Uppercut. Each hit creates a satisfying thud. The bag vibrates under her touch.

Matt presses. “Karen.”

“Just. Having. A. Bad. Day.” Each word is punctuated by a hit.

He wants more than that but holds back. She is thankful for it. Otherwise, she would have had to figure out a way to withhold information without lying. He always knows when she lies. She already has enough lies and half-truths piled up.

 _Stupid fucking heightened senses._ She doesn’t say this aloud, of course.

She throws herself further into her work while she waits out the silence of her “secret admirer”. Silence is an oddity in Karen’s life. It is, after all, a life spent chasing down leads, negotiating protection for sources, and writing articles that will probably lead to her getting her ass kicked by a disgruntled criminal or an entitled businessman. She keeps writing and looking over her shoulder when she walks home from the subway. Once or twice she thinks she catches a glimpse of a white skull on a rooftop. When she looks again the roof is empty.

_You’re dead to me._

A few times she manages to catch Foggy when he has a break from cases that pay him more money than he has ever conceived of making. He unknowingly gives her information that, at the time, she doesn’t even realize she needs.

“There’s this private investigator Hogarth has on retainer. Total fucking badass,” he says stuffing a piece of tuna roll into his mouth.

He curses as some soy sauces drips onto his pants, rushing to dab at it with a napkin.

Her interest is immediately piqued. “Why do you say that?”

"That she’s a badass?”

“Mhm.”

“Well aside from her rather churlish attitude, she gets shit done. She is a special brand of intimidating. She could definitely kick my ass in a fight. Shit, maybe even Matt’s.”

Karen laughs. “Have you ever seen Matt fight?”

Foggy shakes his head. “Hell no and I don’t want to be anywhere near a situation that would require Matt to fuck somebody up.”

Karen can understand the need to be far away from danger and chaos. She envies those who can willingly disengage with it. She hasn't known that privilege in a long time. She has this immutable front row seat to the type of fights that leave people broken and bleeding, begging for a different kind of life. The kind of fight that makes you commit to finding a way out of it no matter what it costs you. She thinks of the envelope slipped under her door and suddenly her food is the last thing she wants. She pushes it away.

Foggy raises an eyebrow. “You okay, Kare?”

Counterfeit smile. She is so good at those by now. So damn good.

“Yeah. My appetite has been off and on lately. Want it?"

He grins. “I never turn down food.”

He takes her plate happily. It makes her smile briefly.

“Tell me more about this private investigator,” Karen says taking a generous sip of her ginger ale.

Karen watches his nose scrunch up as he accidentally eats a piece that has some wasabi on it. She laughs as he coughs, patting his chest frantically even though it won’t relieve the burn. She pushes his water closer to him and he takes a few sips gratefully.

“Jessica Jones. You might remember her name. She killed that guy…the one who could supposedly control people.”

Karen looks stunned. “Holy shit. I remember that story.”

“Exactly. That whole mind-control shit. I swear New York gets weirder by the day. It feels hard to believe sometimes.”

“As hard to believe as a blind vigilante?"

Foggy snorts. “Un-fucking-believable.”

Karen smirks. “So Jessica Jones works for Hogarth?”

Foggy shakes his head. “No, Jessica Jones works for herself. Alias Investigations, I think. Hogarth just has her on retainer. Gets her to track down information for cases sometimes.”

“So she’s good at her job then?” Karen asks almost absently.

“Hogarth never wastes money.”

“Have you used her for any cases?” She asks.

She is so lost int thought that she barely registers reaching over and snatching a piece of sushi that used to be hers.

Foggy pouts at her, tempted to swat her hand away. “No. I told you. She scares me.”

Karen rolls her eyes with a playful smile. “Grow a pair, Nelson.”

Foggy looks indignant. 

"Marci likes my pair just fine. You know, when she’s not trying to grab them and twist them in order to bend me to her very pleasurable will."

Karen flicks one of her chopsticks at him.

___

The second time she gets a package she is working in her office. A college-age kid pokes his head into her office.

“You Karen Page?” he asks.

She looks up from her laptop. “Yep.”

He walks further in and places the yellow envelope on her desk.

_Fuck._

Her rapid pulse is so loud in her ears that she just barely hears the guy tell her that she doesn’t need to sign for it. He is almost out of the door when she stands up abruptly and asks him to wait. If he notices her distress he holds back any comment or facial expression. She doubts he even cares. He just wants to make his money and get on with his life. She takes a deep breath.

“Who sent this in here?” she asks.

He shrugs. “It was in the pile with all the other mail for this floor. Didn’t see who left it, lady.”

He leaves before she can ask him anything else. She quickly moves to her door and looks out. Her co-workers are doing exactly what they’re supposed to be doing: working and not even remotely interested in her.

She quietly shuts her office door and rests her back against it, building up the strength to have her life further fucked up. She can see her name printed on the front in neat handwriting. It's the same type of envelope she found in her apartment. She finally walks over to her desk, takes pictures of the envelope like she did the last time, though she isn’t quite sure why yet. It’s not like she can go to the police with this information. She picks up the envelope and notes that it’s as light as the last one she received.

There is an old picture of her with her brother. They’ve got their arms wrapped around each other, smiling into the camera. They were teenagers then, posing for a picture for the high school newspaper. Her brother’s smile was bright, magnetic. Taped to the picture is her brother’s obituary. 

The sticky note reads: _What happened to the happy family, Miss Page? Did you kill that too?_

She lets out a single, strangled sob and covers her mouth with a shaking hand. She sinks into her chair, her legs completely giving out on her. She spends the next few minutes trying to stave off a panic attack.

As she calms down she comes to three conclusions. !) Someone, more than likely Wilson Fisk himself, knows about James Wesley. 2) It was probably time to seek outside help. 3) Asking for help would demand that she open up about things she had intended to take to her grave.

___

She spends the next few days doing some careful digging about Wilson Fisk’s time in prison. Her search proves unfruitful. All official reports paint Fisk as the model prisoner. Beyond that, there seems to be a complete lockdown on information coming out of the prison. This only confirms her suspicion that there is some sinister shit happening there and Wilson Fisk is probably right in the middle of it. She wants to ask Matt what he found out during his visit after Frank escaped from prison. She knows Matt suspects that Wilson Fisk helped him escape. Too much had been going on after that for her to get a report from Matt about how that visit had gone. As if it could have gone well.

It begins to really occur to her that the person who probably knows the most about Wilson Fisk’s control of the prison, who might actually give her information, is The Punisher himself. His recent radio silence is either a deep relief or incredibly problematic. She hates the part of her that worries that he is dead. Why should she care whether or not he died trying to find healing by waging a never-ending war against criminals? Asking Matt about him still feels off limits to her. And she would have to explain why she cares about whether or not Frank Castle is alive. She doesn’t want to explain. She can’t explain because she never gives herself permission to think about him long enough to answer that annoyingly loaded question.

Still. Frank has information that she needs. And when she thinks about potentially having to divulge information about her past, she can’t imagine telling Matt or Foggy even though she hates holding back from them. Matt would never be able to accept what she did to James Wesley. He would never understand her brother and her family and her old life. The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen could not help her. Not with this. 

She thinks about the implications of teaming up with Frank Castle, the fucking Punisher. She agonizes over the costs of engaging with him again. Would he even want to help her? She can still hear the way the door slams in her face and the echoing gunshot. Frank had made his choice very clear. She was also under no illusions about who had actually set fire to his house. He was destroying any connection to his old life, fully emerging as some fucked up and alluring avenging angel. Asking for help from The Punisher would probably lead to her demise faster than just waiting for Wilson Fisk would. Or maybe she could walk away from it with her life and secrets still protected. She ignores the internal voice that taunts: _yeah, whatever, girl._

One night she calls Foggy.

“Hey. I only have a few minutes to talk. Wassup, Kare?” he says.

She can hear papers shuffling and the frantic sound of a pen on a legal pad.

“Jessica Jones. Do you have her contact information on hand?”

The writing pauses. “Jones? Yeah, why?”

Karen laughs. “Foggy. I am an investigative journalist. I’m good at my job but sometimes I need help chasing down leads.”

Foggy snorts. “Shit, I guess Jones is the only person in this city as good at digging stuff up as you are.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“You’re investigating something dangerous aren’t you?”

Karen doesn’t need to lie. “Most of my job is at least marginally dangerous. Comes with the territory.”

He’s silent for a bit and then groans. “Karen, do not make me regret giving you this information. Be careful please.”

She doesn’t know whether to be annoyed or grateful at his worry.

“You were the one who said she was a badass. Better her track down this information than me, right?”

She knows he would lose his fucking mind if she told him that the information she was getting Jessica to track down was really the location of a person that Foggy was terrified of.

“Fair point.”

He gives her the number and implores her to not get her ass kicked or end up dead. She assures him that she is doing the safest thing she knows how to do. He is not comforted by that but promises that they will have a movie night at his place when he gets a break from the case he is working on. She promises that she will pay for the pizza and beer when that finally happens.

She hangs up with Foggy and immediately texts the number she was given.

**_Name’s Karen Page. Friends with Franklin Nelson from Hogarth’s firm. I need your professional help. Will pay. Please send me your rate._ **

She expects that she’ll have to wait a few hours for a reply. She gets one a few minutes later.

 **_I know who you are. Tomorrow at 10am_ ** _. **Bring booze with you.** _

She sends another text right after with her address.

**_Preferences? - K_**

**_No cheap shit. I know what cheap booze tastes like. Don’t bring it.- J_ **

Karen smiles and decides not to respond further. She gets the feeling Jessica Jones could care less about pleasantries and is already doing something she deems more important than whatever an amateur journalist could need from her.

___

When Jessica Jones opens her door the next morning, Karen doesn’t find herself surprised that her apartment is sparsely furnished. Jessica wears blue jeans, a white tank top under a leather jacket and black combat boots. She is small, has long dark hair and rather pronounced pink lips. Jessica Jones is pretty and every bit as intimidating as Foggy described her. This does not deter Karen though, even when Jessica looks her over very pointedly. In turn, Karen hands her the brown paper bag. Jessica takes it, looks inside, and is seemingly satisfied with the brand Karen chose. She pours herself a glass and sits with her feet propped up on the desk in the middle of what must be the living room.

Jessica takes another moment to look her over. “What can I do for you, Blondie?”

Karen raises an eyebrow. “Not a blonde anymore.”

She doesn’t ask how Jessica knows she used to be. Seems a redundant question given the woman’s profession.

Jessica shrugs dismissively. “Well?”

“I need you to find someone for me. I need a location, an address. I doubt they’ll have a number I can reach them at," Karen says.

Her voice is even and confident even if she does not feel confident about her plan. 

“Some asshole dealing drugs to kids?” Jessica says.

“Frank Castle actually.”

This makes Jessica sit up slowly in her chair.

“The _fucking_ Punisher?”

Karen nods. “Yes.”

Jessica sits back. “You’ve got to be shitting me, Page. Why the hell are you looking for him?”

“I need some information. He has it.”

“And you can’t find that information anywhere else?”

Karen smiles. “You strike me as someone who doesn't think too much about why people do what they do."

“I don’t.”

“Is your hesitation out of fear then?” Karen asks.

Jessica laughs, genuinely amused.

“I’m not scared of that fucking lunatic. Just curious about what a woman like you wants with a man like him.”

Karen shrugs. “Miss Jones, can you find him or not?”

Jessica eyes her for a few moments, probably putting some things together. Jessica, for all her rough edges, is clearly very perceptive. Then she shrugs.

“Yeah, I can find him.”

“Can you do it without him knowing?”

Jessica rolls her eyes. “Please, lady. Give me some credit. This ain’t my first rodeo.”

_“Maybe this isn’t your first rodeo.”_

_“Maybe it isn’t.”_

Karen smiles. “I was told you are the best.”

Jessica downs her drink and pours another glass. 

“And stupid too. Tracking down the Punisher. Un-fucking-believable.”

“How much do I owe you?” Karen asks.

Jessica rubs her temples. “$250.”

Karen winces at the number but takes the money out of her wallet. If only she could expense this to The Bulletin. 

“Timeline of when I can expect something?” Karen asks.

“Give me until the end of the week.”

“Okay.”

“Look, lady, you’re pretty and seem nice. The kind of pretty and nice that ain’t from New York. You might also be insane.”

Karen laughs. “So I have been told.”

She marvels at how similar Jessica and Frank seem. 

___

It takes Jessica three days to give her an address and another warning.

“Don’t get yourself killed, Blondie.”

“Former blonde.”

“Whatever.” Jessica hangs up before Karen can respond.

It takes her another two days to muster up the courage to do anything about the address. She uses a computer at an Internet café to look up and print the directions. She would rather not have the address of a wanted fugitive on her computer or make it easily accessible to the person who left the packages. If the address is correct, and no part of her worries that it’s not, Frank is hiding out about forty-five minutes outside of the city. She supposes this is the smartest thing for a wanted fugitive, though she assumes he likely has safe houses set up around the city.

She rents a car and is relieved when they give her a nondescript black car. She drives back to her neighborhood and parks a few blocks away from her apartment. She wants to wait until dark to drive to find this place. She can’t decide if this is stupid or smart. When it is sufficiently dark outside, she quickly changes and grabs her gun, hiding it in a holster under her shirt. She brings her phone but turns it off. She isn’t completely sure how it works to track a phone, but she no point in taking chances. She also grabs a heavy flashlight she keeps in the table next to her bed.

She takes the back exit to her apartment building and walks briskly back to the car. She spends the first twenty minutes of the drive making sure she isn’t being tailed. When she is satisfied that she isn’t, she can allow herself to really think about what she is about to do. She hasn’t seen Frank in months. Not since that moment on the rooftop where Matt (and Elektra) were battling it out with ninjas. 

Fucking ninjas.

She finds it impossible to slow her pulse. This is probably the dumbest thing she has ever done. What would Frank do when he saw her? Would he slam another door in her face? She guesses he has a right to after what she said the last time they spoke. _You’re dead to me._ She was the one who had said that, yet here she is seeking him out. She wonders if he will be bloody and bruised like that night in the woods. She has never known a Frank sans bruises.

The last fifteen minutes of the drive are dense woods. She can barely see anything beyond the reach of the car’s headlights. No street lamps, no houses. She almost misses the turn that takes the car onto rough gravel. How had Jessica known where to find him if he was this far off the grid? Well, the woman was a private investigator with a seemingly unique skillset, if the rumors about her were true. When Karen suspects she is close she dims her headlights and greatly decreases her speed. The gravel eventually opens up to reveal a small house nestled in the woods. The house is completely dark and there is no car visible.

Karen’s heart lurches into her throat and she has half a mind to quickly back out the way she came. Then she thinks of the envelopes hidden in her dresser drawer and her secrets and she forces herself to drive a little bit further and then stop. She quickly turns off the car and pales when it becomes even darker than it was before.

“Shit. Shit. What are you even doing here?”

She panics when she thinks about him not being home and her having driven all this way. The Punisher did go out at night. Or what if this wasn’t his house and there was a serial killer just hiding out waiting for stupid journalists to come knocking? She gives herself a moment to panic, grabs the flashlight and her bag and then finally gets out of the car. She closes the door as quietly as she can. It still makes more noise than she is comfortable with.

_You might die here, you idiot._

She walks closer to the house, cursing the way her boots crunch on the gravel. She tries to get to the part that is grass quickly without making even more noise. She can make out the silhouette of a small shed off to the right and behind the house. She focuses back on the house, looking for shadows and trying to make out details. The house has a pretty decent sized porch with a lone rocking chair placed by the door.

She tries to imagine Frank sitting in a rocking chair and fails. It almost makes her laugh. Then she conjures up an image of Frank sitting in the rocking chair with a sawed-off shotgun and that image fits. She notes that the stairs are wooden and prays that they will not creak under her weight. She has no trouble believing that Frank would shoot through the door if he thought she was a threat. If he was even home. If this was even his house. She stops at the steps and looks up at the dark house. No signs of anyone inside. She is about to mount the first step when she hears him. 

“Don’t move.”

His voice is much closer than it should be given that she heard no signs of him approaching. But then again, this man is a tactical magician with military training. Of course, she didn’t see or hear him. He didn't want her to.

She feels both afraid and inexplicably relieved to hear his voice; still impossibly deep and gruff. He always sounds like he eats glass for breakfast.

“Put your hands up. Now.”

She does. Slowly. For a brief second, she wonders if he can see the glint of her red nail polish. Did he often fight assailants wearing red nail polish? She doubts it. 

“Turn around,” he says.

She does. “Hi, Frank.”

Internally, she wonders about the implications of this moment, wonders what this will be the impetus for.


	3. Vulerability

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karen and Frank talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I loved writing this chapter. Frank + Karen interaction for the ENTIRE chapter. It's interesting to write Frank without doing it from his point of view. Let me know what you think. You guys are so great.

Sometimes Karen thinks about the sheer number of walls that exist in the world. Walls built of brick, of concrete, of wood, of skin and bones. Are walls meant to keep things in or keep things out? Sometimes she thinks of all the walls in the world and wonders why people keep building walls when everyone still keeps getting hurt behind them. She wonders if life is even worth living if there are so many walls between people that everyone lives in a state of perpetually being disconnected.

Later she will wonder what made her decide that the Punisher was allowed behind her walls. Especially when Frank Castle is masterful at wounding and hurting.

___

He has a gun pointed at her head and is almost right in front of her. He stops immediately when he hears her voice.

“You've got to be fucking kidding me.”

She keeps her hands up. “Afraid not.”

He lowers his gun. She can just barely make out his features in the moonlight. She can’t tell if his face is a patchwork of bruises and cuts like the last time. She can see that he was not expecting company or even planning to go out. He’s wearing loose grey sweats and a black shirt. He isn’t even wearing shoes. She wonders if this is what all vigilantes wear on their nights off. She is shamefully aware that this particular ensemble fits him much differently than it did Matt.

“Ma’am?”

She can’t help the small smile. “The one and only.”

He quickly looks around the clearing, making note of her car, before his eyes are back on her.

“Jesus Christ.”

“Can I put my hands down now or are you still worried that I’m a threat?” she asks,  

She shifts slightly to release some of her adrenaline. He scrubs a hand over his face. He is clearly more than a little perturbed by her sudden appearance.

“Jesus Christ."

She puts her hands down anyway but keeps her palms open and facing him. He continues to stare at her.

“I have a gun on me. If it helps to know,” she says not quite sure what else to say in that moment.

“You should have had it drawn and ready to shoot coming out to some dark fucking house like this.”

Definitely more than a little agitated then. It amuses her. She realizes that she is amused because she is at least marginally pleased to see him alive and well. An agitated Frank is a relatively healthy Frank. From what she can tell he seems uninjured. She wonders what he will look like under better lighting, wonders if he will even allow her to come inside given his apparent distress over her presence.

She waits for him to do something. He just keeps staring between her and her car. His finger is tapping incessantly against his gun, well away from the trigger, she notices. She takes a step back and he tenses but he makes no move to raise his gun at her. She supposes he wouldn’t do that anyway. He has never seemed particularly interested in hurting or killing her.

But what if he ever found out about the shit that she's done?

“I’m reaching for my gun to give it to you,” she says.

Her hands move slowly towards her holster.

He sighs in exasperation. “I don’t want your gun. I want to know what the hell you’re doing out here.”

“I need to talk to you.”

“How did you even find this place?”

She decides she will keep that information to herself for the time being.

“I’m good at finding the answers to things when I want them.”

“I can’t fucking believe this. And that’s not an answer,” he says crossing his arms even with the gun still in his hand.

“I keep my sources a secret.”

“Get back in your car and get out of here. Now. Never come back here again.”

He turns and begins to walk back around the side of the house he must have come from. He is so confident that she will do what he says that he doesn’t even look back at her. In the months since he has last seen her, he must have forgotten how relentless she can be.

“Do you think I would have come here if it wasn’t important?” 

He stops and she can tell he is reining in whatever emotions are throwing him off balance. She knows he won’t hit her or lash out at her. Still, that doesn’t keep him from being completely fucking annoyed with her. When he turns around his trigger finger is still twitching against his gun.

“One, you said I was dead to you. Two, what the hell are you doing out here looking for me in the first place? What if this wasn’t my fucking house? What if some psycho serial killer lived out here?”

She refrains from joking that some would strongly argue that a psycho serial killer _does_ live here. She thinks it's clever. He probably wouldn't appreciate it. Instead, she says:

“I had it on good authority that you lived here, Frank.”

“Yes, this magical fucking authority that you can’t divulge."

“Frank--”

“I am only going to ask you this one more time: _what_ are you doing here?”

She sighs. “Wilson Fisk. I’m here because of Wilson Fisk.”

She wishes she had more visibility to see his expression. There is a slight shift in his body language. It’s not that he becomes completely open to her being there. He is still very much not okay with her appearance at his house. But there is something in him that gives, if only a little bit.

“What about him?”

She almost sighs in relief when he bites.

“I get that you would rather chop your hand off than invite me into your house--”

He scoffs and scrubs a hand over his face again.

“--But I would really love to not have this conversation in the middle of the dark woods.”

“Then you should have stayed in the city.”

“Maybe. But here I am now and you have a house that has lights. Probably. Most likely. So can we please go inside of it?”

Her eyes are beginning to adjust to the dark and she can see that his eyes are darting to and fro as he thinks. She is sorely tempted to admit that she sort of missed his shiftiness, always moving and thinking. It should make her nervous that he was going to lose his fucking mind and shoot her. She knows better though. After almost a full minute he shakes his head.

“I can’t believe this shit,” he mutters. “Come on.”

He abruptly turns around and stalks around the house. She is so stunned that he is actually going to let her in that he disappears around the side of the house before she moves to follow him. Then she does and quickly scrambles after him. She almost shrieks when she rounds the side of the house and collides with his solid form.

“Shit," she says as she runs into him.

She nearly falls and he reaches out to grab her before she does. His hands are warm and big. They don’t linger. Once he is sure that she won’t topple over he takes his hands away from her and fixes her with a stare.

“I have a dog.”

She just stares at him blankly. “…Huh?”

He sighs. “I have a dog. Don’t be scared when we go inside.”

She still just stares at him. 

“You have a dog?”

He tilts his head back, groans deeply, and then leads her to a side door. He opens it and she can hear the click of paws on what sounds like a hardwood floor. Then she hears deep growling. Frank’s large body blocks her view into the house and the apparently ferocious canine waiting on the other side to take a chunk out of her ass.

“Down, Prince. She’s okay,” he says. 

How his voice manages to be both soothing and gravelly at the same time she does not know. The growling stops and there is a soft whine. Frank moves into the house and she follows him. Right as she steps over the threshold to the door, light floods the room. She blinks against the sudden brightness.

The first thing she notices is the dog staring at her, tail reluctantly wagging. The second thing she notices is the breed. Of course Frank would have a pit bull. She can concede to the logic of this once she wraps her head around the fact that he even has a dog in the first place. The third thing she notices is how beautiful the dog is. He has lovely grey-blue fur and large eyes. The dog captivates her even as she stands in the house of a man convicted of mass murder. She squats down slowly and extends her hand. She leaves distance for Prince to come to her if he wants to. He does and sniffs her hand.

“Hi, handsome,” she says softly, pleased when he licks her hand.

She begins rubbing his head and his tail wags in earnest. She looks up and then down quickly. Frank is regarding them with a pensive stare, his jaw ticking.

“You have a dog.”

“I told you that.”

She continues to run her hands gently over the dog's fur. 

“Forgive me for finding it hard to imagine you having a dog, Frank.”

He looks slightly affronted.

“I like dogs, ma’am.”

She smirks at Prince.

“Obviously."

Frank only grunts in response and starts to move away from them. She lets out a huff of surprised laughter when Prince pushes his head into her torso. She almost loses her balance. She pets him further and coos softly to him about how beautiful he is. As she pets him she takes a moment to look around her. They are in a short entryway and she can see the kitchen just beyond it. A standard washer and dryer is to her left. The shelf above is lined with washing detergent and a toolbox.

She stands up and follows Frank into the kitchen that is brighter and more furnished than she would have expected from him. He leans against the counter with his arms crossed over his broad chest. She doesn’t know if she’s ready to really see him so she continues to look around the kitchen noting how clean it is. There’s a dark wooden table on the far side of the kitchen near a door that looks like it leads to the living room.

“Coffe?”

It really is more of a grunt than an actual question.

She nods, still looking everywhere but him.

“Yes, thank you.”

While he is making coffee she drifts to the door that leads to the living room. She leans against the frame trying to hide how interested she is in the room beyond it. He probably knows exactly what she’s doing but he makes no move to stop her. Prince comes and nudges her leg with his nose. She leans over and rubs his head again. He pants happily. This might have been the weirdest thing she had ever experienced. She startles slightly at Frank’s voice.

“Might as well go and look. You clearly want to.”

“How do you know I want to?”

She can practically hear his eyes rolling but she still keeps her eyes on Prince.

“You’re about as subtle as a fucking elephant, ma’am.”

“Did you just compare me to an elephant?”

“Have you ever used subtle as a word to describe an elephant?” he asks.

“…No.”

“Then the comparison fits,” he says.

She resists the urge to give him the finger. Again, she is surprised. The house actually looks lived in and lived in by a man who isn’t a career vigilante. There is a soft looking black couch against the right wall. A matching armchair in the left corner closest to the doorway she’s standing in. There is a coffee table that looks like it matches the dining room table placed in front of the couch. Prince’s bed is next to the couch along with some chew toys. What really throws her off is the large bookshelf lined with books nestled in the corner next to the window by the front door.

_The Punisher likes to read in his free time? Get me out of the fucking Twilight Zone._

She can feel the weight of his scrutiny on her. He is probably doing that thing he always does, fixing her with that stupid stare that makes her feel like he can see into her soul. She wonders why she wants him to keep looking at her if she hates it so much. If she doesn’t want him to stop then why won’t she look at him?

_You are insane, Karen._

She finally turns around to look at him. Of course he is still looking at her. She wonders what he sees, what he's thinking. He always seems to know, has an almost sinful acuity. Especially when it comes to her. In the same way, there is a dangerous amount of awareness she has about him too. She imagines he know this and hates every bit of it. Or hates enough of it to resent her showing up in his life again.

She is pleased that he has no bruises on his face. Not even the hint of a fading bruise. His hair is longer than she has ever seen it and he hasn’t shaved in a few days. His face has filled out more. He probably eats and sleeps a bit more than he was when she last saw him. He almost, the operative word being almost, doesn’t look like he should be called the Punisher. That is until one takes into account his hard eyes and coiled muscle, the way his veins bulge on his forearms and the rigid posture he learned during his time in the Marines.

She tries to run a hand through her hair and realizes she still has a hat on. She pulls it off and pushes some hair behind her ear. Frank is looking at her with a raised eyebrow.

“Well, shit, I can’t call you Red too.”

She frowns.

“What?”

“Your hair, ma’am.”

She rolls her eyes. 

“Yes. Got that part. Who else do you call Red?”

“The only person in the city who runs around with a red costume. Can you believe that fucking guy?”

She blinks in confusion and then is slightly embarrassed at how long it takes her to understand. Red. Daredevil. _Matt_. Her eyes narrow at him and she wonders how much Frank knows about Daredevil’s secret identity.

“Red. Cute nickname,” she says crossing her arms"

He shrugs.

“I sure as hell ain’t calling him the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. Stupid fucking name."

She is surprised that she wants to smile and bites the inside of her cheek to keep from doing so. Frank is still watching her.

“No more skirts then?” he asks.

His expression is unreadable, flat. She doesn't get the sense that he's teasing her.

“I wear them less frequently now. Makes a bit more sense for my job.”

“Hm.”

He turns around and pours two cups of coffee and brings them over to the table. He sits down and slides a cup across the table for her. She sits down and wraps her hands around the mug. The aroma is delicious. This is not cheap coffee. She takes a sip and resists the urge to groan in delight. Of course. Frank would buy divine coffee. She wonders if he might secretly be snooty when it comes to food. Wouldn’t surprise her. He watches her over the lip of his mug as he takes a gulp that should burn the shit out of his tongue. In classic Frank style, he doesn’t even flinch. He gives her a look that tells her she should start talking.

He fixes her with a look that tells her she should start talking.

“What do you know about Wilson Fisk in prison?" she asks.

She keeps her hands wrapped around the mug for comfort. 

“Why?” he asks eyeing her.

"I have reason to believe that he has someone watching me,” she says.

Something in him hardens immediately. She can’t tell if it’s because she said that someone is watching her or because he somehow knows that she isn’t telling the whole story.

“You guys were the ones that put him away.”

“Yes.”

“Now you think he has someone watching you?”

“I do.”

“Why?”

“Why what?"

He frowns.

“We really gonna do this?”

“What are we doing, Frank?”

He takes a sip of his coffee.

“Okay, let’s keep playing this game. I don't have shit else to do tonight.”

She rubs her temples.

“Frank, I will leave as soon as you tell me what you know about Fisk. I will never come back here again.”

“You want answers then give answers.”

“Does it matter why Wilson Fisk has someone watching me?” she asks choosing to look into her coffee instead of at him.

“Would you be here if the reason didn’t matter, ma’am?”

His voice is gentle, the way she remembers it being whenever he talked to her.

She finally looks at him. His eyes are trained on her, steadfast. He somehow looks both relaxed and tense. She has everything to do with his tension. She was crossing a line, a line neither was sure they could cross again in good conscience. Yet, here she is sitting across from the Punisher and here he is making her coffee. She looks over and sees that his gun is on the counter. He watches her notice the gun, his eyes following her movement. She looks back at him and makes a decision.

She raises her hands so that they are level with her shoulders.

“Okay.”

His eyes narrow.

“What are you doing, Page?”

“Take my gun from me,” she says to him.

His nose scrunches in typical Frank Castle confusion.

“What?”

“Take it or I reach for it and place it on the table. It’s up to you.”

He sighs.

“Why do you keep trying to give me your gun."

“Typically you shoot people who reach for their guns.”

He leans back slowly in his chair. It creaks under his weight. His demeanor changes from confused to predacious. His eyes are hard and she very quickly remembers why they call him the Punisher.

“You think I would shoot you?”

“Why should I take any chances?"  

She expects a response from him. He just places his elbows on the tables and rests his hands in front of his face, kind of like he did in the diner. He just watches her. She reaches for her gun, watching him. He never moves, never takes his eyes off hers. She removes it from her holster and places it on the table between them, sliding it over to him. Now it’s her turn to lean back in her chair.

“I think Wilson Fisk has someone following me because he knows that I killed James Wesley.”

Frank must have played poker back before his life had shifted so dramatically.

“James Wesley?” he asks.

“His right-hand man.”

His eyes go to the gun. She feels a chill run down her spine.

“Is this his gun?”

She shakes her head.

“No. I threw his gun in the river. I wiped my fingerprints off of it and the table I was sitting at when I shot him." 

His trigger finger twitches. He tilts his head to the side to regard her. She continues.

“I was digging into Fisk. I found some information about him and his parents. Wesley found out that I was looking into it. He kidnapped me and threatened to kill the people I love and then me if I didn’t stop looking. He had a gun on the table between us. He got a phone call and I grabbed it.”

“Then you shot him.”

It is not a question. He knows.

“Six times.”

He is contemplative, but not surprised. She watches him piece everything together.

_No, what surprised me is that you didn’t plug me._

“Nobody else knows?” he asks rubbing a knuckle against his lips.

“I haven’t told anyone if that’s what you’re asking.”

He hums low in his throat. Prince comes over and shoves his head in Frank’s lap. Frank drops one hand absently to pet him affectionately. Karen finds it nearly impossible to reconcile this image to the man who had t-boned her car with his truck and then dragged the Blacksmith’s broken body through the woods before shooting him. Then she remembers the reverent way he talked about his family in the hospital, the way he smiled when he described Frank Jr. hiding cookies.

“Why didn’t you go to the police?”

His question isn’t accusatory.

“He was paying a lot of them. I didn’t know who I could trust on the force."

He nods. “Why didn’t you tell Red?”

She goes rigid in her seat. Why would he assume she had any relationship with Daredevil?

“Why would I tell Daredevil?” she asks watching his reaction closely.

“That’s the type of shit you should tell your boyfriend, ma’am.”

Frank Castle never minces words.

“You knew. In the diner when you were giving me that little speech about holding on. You knew Matt was Daredevil?”

“He doesn’t disguise his voice,” is all he says by way of explanation.

She has so many more questions for him surrounding the topic of Matt’s identity. So many fucking questions. She refrains from asking them because now is not the time.

“He isn’t my boyfriend and he wouldn’t understand,” she says finally.

Frank raises an eyebrow. “You let go.”

She wants to yell at him for that. She really does. Maybe she will set him straight one day. For now, she changes the subject.

“I shot a man six times. In some ways it was self-defense. In some ways it was preemptive.”

His eyes are back on the gun she placed on the table.

“And you think I should shoot you for it?"

She shrugs. “You are the Punisher after all.”

Something flashes in his eyes. Anger probably. He opens his mouth to say something and then stops. His trigger finger twitches once, twice. His hand goes to the gun. She tenses but makes no move to defend herself or hide. Not that it would matter anyway. He could kill her before she even got out of her chair. The man is a mercenary after all.

She frowns when he simply pushes the gun back towards her and leans back away from the table.

“I’m not going to hurt you. You know better than that.”

She looks away from him. She feels so light that it almost makes her dizzy. She wants to cry, to weep with relief, but won’t in front of him. What could Frank Castle possibly do with her tears? She’s been carrying the weight of James Wesley for what feels like ages. He has a starring role in her dreams and now Frank knows and he’s giving her back her gun and his understanding and absolutely no condemnation. He doesn’t even need to tell her that he understands because she can see it in the way that he regards her, the way that his eyes are softer than they’ve been since she showed up unannounced at his house in the middle of the woods.

“You’ve been quiet lately,” she says.

She takes a sip of her coffee that doesn't burn her tongue anymore. She still can’t look at him.

He rubs a hand over his scruff. She can tell by the sound it makes. 

“Been doing other things in other places.”

She wants to ask him more questions but she doubts that he will tell her anything. Not now. Plus she came here for a reason. She looks at him again.

“Did Wilson Fisk help you escape from prison?”

She can tell in the way that he sits up straighter that he has strong feelings about Wilson Fisk. His trigger finger is tapping against his mug.

“Yeah, after he tried to have me killed.”

Her eyes widen. “What? Why?”

“Because he has a death wish,” Frank says coldly. 

Something, probably fear, crawls across her skin. 

“Why did he help you escape if he tried to kill you?” she asks.

“Because that fucker wants me to kill off anybody that could climb to the top before he gets out.”

It makes perfect sense. Fisk has every intention of getting out of prison and reclaiming his reign over Hell’s Kitchen. What better way to get rid of threats than to set the Punisher loose on every criminal that could potentially take his place?

“I knew it. Fisk is running that prison now. Jesus Christ."

She misses the way Frank watches her, his gaze calculating.

“Have you seen the person watching you?”

She’s still distracted by Frank confirming her theory.

“What? No, I haven’t seen anyone."

“Then what did they leave you?”

She knows she must look pale. 

“What?”

“They left you something. If you haven’t seen them then they had to let you know they had the drop on you somehow. A note. A picture."

She feels a disquiet slink up the length of her spine. She should have known that he would understand how these things work. Of course, he knew. It had been liberating, more than she even had the capacity to process, telling Frank about Wesley. James Wesley was one thing. Her brother was a completely different thing. She could not do that tonight. 

“They left some stuff at my apartment and work. Notes alluding to knowing about Wesley."

“That all you gonna give me?” he asks staring her down.

“Depends. You going to tell me about Kandahar?”

She doesn't know why she said anything about Kandahar. She had not given a single thought to Kandahar in the time that she had been with him. She blinks in surprise. Is she really surprised though? Would she really not use every weapon at her disposal to keep him away from her secrets? He says absolutely nothing and gives her the same look he gave her in the woods when she had asked about it then.

She does not want to think about the woods or the way her body had ached that night. She does not want to think about a bloody Schnoover and the way his face must have looked after Frank shot him. Mostly, she does not want to remember the way Frank had looked at her with flat, shark-like eyes before he slammed the door. 

He just stares at her now. She clears her throat. 

“Is there anything else that might help me figure out who is working for Fisk?”

He leans back in his chair. His head tilts just so.

“You know I’m not gonna let this go, right?”

“Let what go?”

He frowns.

“Fisk has a target on your back and now I know about it. Let me handle it.”

She has an argument ready and he cuts her off.

“Look. I don’t think you’re some damsel in distress. You're a terrible fucking damsel. You’re tough as shit and reckless as hell, a real pain in the ass. You don’t need some man to save you and I'm not looking to. That doesn’t mean you can take on Fisk by yourself, ma’am.”

She glares at him. “I’m dealing with it.”

He scoffs. “Oh yeah? How?”

She falters. “Why do you even care?”

The look he fixes her with makes something explode in her chest. It makes her damn near dizzy and she cannot even begin to put words to a thing happening in that moment. He looks away and then back at her, seemingly having steeled himself against something that he would probably never tell her. 

“I owe Fisk a bullet. Now I have more incentive to fuck him up.”

It absolutely does not answer her question. Not at all. But she certainly was not going to push and to what end would she push anyway?

“What exactly do you mean by handle it?” she asks.

He gives her a look that tells her she knows exactly what he means. She sighs and shakes her head.

“No.”

“If you think--”

“No, Frank. Can't you just do some recon?"

“I will. Then I'll use the intel to know who to kill." 

She groans in frustration.

“So is this an offer to help me? I'm confused here."

He shrugs. She takes it as a yes.

“Then do it my way.”

“Your way might get you killed."

Karen actually lets her forehead hit the table. Prince comes over at the sound and happily shoves his head onto her leg. She pets him. How did she end up at Frank’s house arguing with him about whether or not he was going to kill people and petting his dog? Why did he even have a dog? Why was he letting her continue to stay here after what she’d said to him? At some point, he must get tired of waiting for her to pull it together.

"Ma'am."

“Frank. Can’t you just do some recon and then we’ll decide what to do later?”

“We?” he asks raising an eyebrow.

“For someone right smack in the middle of his goddamn mind, you are crazy if you think you are going to do this without me.”

His lips quirk infinitesimally at the callback of his meltdown on the stand and he grunts in acceptance.

“Okay, Page.”

She blinks. “…Really?”

“Don’t make me change my mind.”

She smiles. She actually smiles.

“Fine. How do I get in touch with you?"

He gives her a knowing look.

"I know where you live, Page."

She pauses. "I moved."

His look doesn't change. 

She raises an eyebrow. Why had he been keeping tabs on her? She had a lot of questions about that and absolutely no courage to ask any of them. Instead, she tries her hand at scolding him. 

"Frank, that's the type of shit people file restraining orders over."

He shrugs.

"Add it to all the other shit I've been charged with. Maybe I'll actually rot in a goddamn jail cell this time." 

A burst of laughter escapes. She covers her mouth as if it would force anything else back down. His smile is brief and barely lifts the corner of his mouth.

“Go home, ma'am."

She stands up and puts her gun back in her holster. He takes their cups and brings them to the sink. She looks down at the table for a few moments. There are many unexplained things between them. It would probably be that way for the duration of them working together. But there was that thing in the woods that needed to be addressed because they both remembered it and it would loom over them if they continued to keep it chained away. She takes a deep breath. 

“I told you that you were dead to me."

He keeps his back to her. 

"Yeah, you did."

"I meant it when I said it. I won't pretend that I didn't."

He nods, back still to her. 

"Good. You ain't gotta apologize for that," he says. 

"It was the wrong thing to say."

He doesn’t turn around at her words. He starts washing the cups. She figures he won’t say anything at all so she turns to walk through the living room and out the front door.

“You make a good redhead, ma’am.”

Damn him. She smiles but doesn't turn around to let him see it. Leave it to Frank Castle to be charming at the most inconvenient moments.


	4. Complicated

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karen decides she needs some new rhythms in her life. Enter Trish Walker. Frank shows up with Prince in tow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear friends. I am so sorry for the delayed update. I relocated cities and was away for work and went on vacation. Thank you for being so patient. This chapter was fun to write. It took me a while to decide exactly what I wanted to do with it because it could have gone some other ways. I think I'm satisfied with it! I introduce an OC that I really like. We'll see how much play she gets in future chapters. As always, feedback is lovely. You guys are the best.

Karen always believed that the older you get the more sure you become about everything. She had always assumed that the world started out grey until you got old enough for the hues of black and white to become more pronounced, to become their own entities. Age is rumored to bring wisdom and wisdom expected to divulge answers to vexing questions.

In reality, what Karen has learned is that the staunch black and white of childhood actually evolves to become a strange amalgam of compromises and fluidity. Strong conclusions become unsatisfactory and imperfect. Conviction becomes both arbitrary and transitory, for better and for worse.

Simply put, everything gets unnervingly complicated.

___ 

Rather than being preoccupied with thoughts of Frank and their nebulous partnership, Karen works and continues to train because common sense tells her that she might need to be proficient in breaking someone’s nose in the near future. A good chunk of her recent training is void of Matt. He seems engrossed in things related to his night job. She is content to let him demonstrate the moves and techniques he wants her to practice at the beginning of the week and spends the rest of the week perfecting them on her own. He is always impressed by her the next time he sees her, wondering how she can grasp such concepts without having someone riding her ass all week long. He expresses this to her once, in much more delicate terms, and she only laughs in response and tells him to show her what’s next. His response is to thoroughly kick her ass. 

Despite worrying about him, she finds herself more than okay with his absence. The potential of him figuring shit out about her remains inordinately high given his particular skill set. Better for him to be away trying to uncover other hidden pieces of information than to stumble upon things she would rather keep from him. Life was enough work without having to bewail deeds that she has yet to decide if she is repentant of. 

Often she wonders what it might mean that she would rather have Frank Castle know her sins than Matt Murdock

___ 

At some point she decides that she needs a social life beyond sporadic hangouts with Foggy, training with Matt, and waiting for Frank to randomly show up at her door with information. She expects for him to wait as long as possible to find her because despite his seeming willingness to help, there remained a glaring lack of eagerness at her reentry into his life for all the reasons that probably made good sense. She can’t fault him for that. 

More concerning are her hermit-like tendencies. Perhaps evading the threat of Wilson Fisk is a terrible time to consider having a social life. Still, It occurs to her as she listens to her co-workers talk about weekend plans that she has no life outside of work and being continually thrust into the world of vigilantism.

“What do you do for fun?” Mike asks one day. 

Magic Mike, as the women around the office like to call him. Mike is tall and beautiful, armed with an extensive vocabulary, a seemingly endless supply of skinny ties, and an easy charm. Sometimes Karen finds herself wondering if he can move his body as fluently as Channing Tatum, vaguely ashamed that she has even seen Magic Mike to begin with. Male strippers were never really her thing. 

She balks at the question and decides that sarcasm is her best chance at avoiding the appearance of being a complete loser. Her smirk is practiced and she briefly wonders if she has anything authentic left in her besides fear and anger. 

“Tell me more about this fun thing you speak of. I have no idea what that is.”

Mike laughs. “Seriously, Page? This job can’t be your everything.” 

“Who has time for fun?” she groans. This question is authentic. 

Lisa, a columnist for the paper, sighs good-naturedly. Sometimes Karen looks at Lisa and wonders if she is anything like Lisa Castle would have been if she had lived long enough to have a career. It makes her heart twinge with a soreness she probably has no right to given that she has never met Lisa Castle and never will. Her co-worker, with her waist length dark hair and brown eyes, looks nothing like Frank’s daughter, but she still manages to make Karen queasy with hopes for a life that will never be lived. 

“Nobody has time for fun unless they make time for it. Create time for it otherwise you’ll be miserable and burn out,” Lisa says.

She speaks with a seriousness that tells Karen that she knows this from experience.

She spends the rest of her lunch break listening to them talk about their lives outside of work, coming to the conclusion that she is in dire need of hobbies. The tragic reality is that she has long since forgotten what fun means for her. Sure, hanging out with Matt and Foggy at Josie’s had been fun, but even that having been the entirety of her social life was more than a little problematic. She can remember being younger and imagining what her adult life would be like. Nothing could have prepared her for the pervasive loneliness that seems to settle into every part of her being. Whatever happened to hanging out with friends on the weekend, drinking wine, and late nights spent dancing or in deep conversations?

Apparently, such things take an unwilling backseat to the daily dose of lies, murder and general pandemonium. It is impossible for her not to notice how empty her apartment is when she gets home that night. She plays music loudly just to cancel out the silence.

___

She joins a running club and feels rather _New York_ about the whole business. The entire thing is almost hipster except she doesn’t make nearly enough to enjoy the luxuries of the modern hipster. She stumbles upon a flyer at one of her favorite coffee shops, the one with the cute barista with dark hair and a flirty smile. Though, to be fair, that smile seems available to anyone with breasts. She glances at the bulletin board and is a bit distracted by the bright colors of the flyer. Upon further investigation she sees that the flyer is advertising a running club that meets four days a week to run and stops for breakfast on Saturdays.

She almost walks away from it without taking down the number. But then she thinks about Lisa and Mike. She thinks of her lonely apartment, her healing relationship with Matt and her irregular meetings with Foggy. She thinks of Frank and his surprisingly warm, but isolated house and the silence that must be overwhelming for him at times, leaving him only with the memories of his family and his violence. She abruptly wonders what the point of escaping from Vermont was if she refuses to actually live, to experience more than the shadows of Hell’s Kitchen. She saves the name and number of the woman listed before going back to work on her story.

When she gets home she sends a text to the woman, Mia, and is rewarded with a prompt response. Mia invites Karen to join them the following day for a “short” four-mile run, giving her the address to the park that they typically meet at. It will require a brief subway trip for Karen and she would honestly prefer to sleep in given that it's the weekend and she is off, but she agrees. In the morning she throws on some running clothes and leaves in time to be ten minutes early. She listens to Beyoncé’s Lemonade the entire way, repeating Don’t Hurt Yourself and wishing the album had been released when she first broke up with Matt. She’s stretching by a bench when a slender Asian-American woman walks up to her. 

“Are you Karen?” she asks with a smile. 

Karen notes how beautiful the woman is with her short pixie cut and nose ring. 

Karen returns her smile and extends her hand.

“Yes. You must be Mia. Nice to meet you.” 

“Likewise. Glad you decided to join us today. Normally we have about five to six women running, but today it’ll just be Trish joining us. A lot of them are out of town or doing something else.” 

“Six?”

Mia smirks.

“We don’t all run at the same pace. We just hang out around here until everyone gets back and then we get breakfast.” 

“And we love mimosas."

Karen recognizes the new speaker immediately.

“You’re Trish Walker,” she says with wide eyes. 

Trish smiles. “And you’re Karen Page.”

Karen raises an eyebrow. “You know who I am?” 

Trish grins.

“Fan of your writing. Plus you seem like you have a lot of balls. I can dig that too.” 

Karen finds herself laughing.

“I think I like you both already.”

Mia smiles and pats her on the back.

“Good. You’re probably stuck with us now. Ready?”

Karen shrugs.

“Probably not, but let’s get it over with.” 

Despite her comment, Karen easily keeps up with Mia and Trish thanks to her training with Matt. There is little talking during the run, but the silence is comfortable and Karen feels incredible. Afterwards, they go to a family owned restaurant that has the “best breakfast in a ten-mile radius”, according to Mia. Karen enjoys a veggie omelet while sipping the mimosa Trish orders for her. She decides five minutes into breakfast that she likes the shit out of these women. She does her best not to fangirl over Trish and Trish makes it easy to disregard her celebrity status with her down to earth friendliness and wry humor. 

Over the course of breakfast, she learns that Mia is Korean, grew up in Miami after moving to the states, and lives with her girlfriend Michelle in a loft that they can only afford because Michelle is a physical therapist. Mia works as the director of a non-profit environmental organization. She jokes about Michelle being her ‘suga mama’ though Karen can tell that Mia is madly in love with the woman and is too independent to date anyone for their money. Karen asks if Michelle ever runs with them. 

“When she decides to drag her beautiful ass out of bed, sure,” Mia says. 

As they are finishing up breakfast and standing outside Mia eyes her and Karen gets the distinct impression that Mia will be added to her list of annoyingly perceptive friends. 

“You got a lot of friends in New York?” she asks bluntly.

Karen likes that about her. 

“Not as many as I should have,” Karen says. 

Mia nods.

“Takes a long time to make friends here. But now you have them. Don’t duck out on us.” 

This stuns Karen into silence. Mia winks and tells them she’ll see them later before heading off in the opposite direction. Trish has her own thoughtful look as she watches Karen.

“You know what I think?” Trish asks. 

Karen meets her gaze.

“Do tell.” 

“I think you and I are very similar.” 

Karen takes a good look at Trish.

“Yeah. I think we are.” 

They start to head in the direction of the subway. Karen mentally notes that Trish Walker, who probably owns a rather nice car, takes the subway sometimes. As if the woman wasn’t already cool enough. Neither of them feels the need to say more and that in itself should be surprising considering new friends typically feel obligated to fill silent spaces. As Trish is about to head to her platform she surprises Karen. 

“You’ve met my best friend before. Jessica Jones.”

Karen stops abruptly.

“Jessica Jones?” 

Trish shrugs.

“We’ve known each other a really long time. She knows I read your articles. She mentioned meeting you though. Didn’t say where or why. Though she never really does unless you push her.”

Karen finds herself immediately wary despite the fact that she really likes Trish. Perhaps because she is feeling strangely protective of Frank at the moment. 

Trish notices the change in Karen.

“Don’t worry. I didn’t push her for details, not that she would tell me anyway. More importantly, I doubt the details would bother me.” 

There is something in the way that Trish looks at her that makes Karen wonder if this is how soldiers look at other soldiers. She thinks that maybe Frank probably looked at his buddies after the war this way; like they know something the rest of the world will never know. She knew in that moment that she and Trish could have the type of friendship that she has been longing for since she moved to New York.

“Hm. Maybe one day we’ll swap details,” Karen says with a small grin. 

Trish nods with a smile of her own.

“Sounds like a plan. See you later, Blondie.”

She leaves Karen to wait for her train feeling distinctly hopeful and a little overwhelmed.

___ 

Karen mounts the stairs to her floor languidly, lacking all sense of grace. She is so deep in thought that she has her key in the lock before she notices the black leash hanging from her doorknob. She pauses curiously with her head tilted in confusion. 

“What the hell--?" 

Her door suddenly opens from the inside and she instinctively tries to back away. A hand shoots out to grab her wrist and pull her inside. The grip is impossibly strong and gives her no time to process the fact that the hand on her is not actually painful. Thinking quickly and leaning into the momentum of the pull, she forms a fist and lands a solid punch to her assailant’s solar plexus like Matt taught her. In less than a second, she is rearing her hand back to aim another jab at his throat. He catches her hand and manages to spin her into the apartment, closing the door with one arm and pinning her to the wall with the other. 

“Page, it’s me,” Frank says calmly, his voice curiously more thick than usual. 

Karen blinks rapidly at him even as her heart races with an adrenaline that threatens to send her flying off the wall. She just barely registers Prince out of the corner of her eye standing tensely, but generously and inexplicably not barking. 

“Are you kidding me?” she whispers fiercely. “ _Jesus Christ, Frank._ ”

She shoves him harshly because she needs to do something with her hands and if she doesn’t move she just might have a heart attack. He backs away with a sort of grace that makes her want to bang his head into the wall. She knows that he only moves away because he chooses to, not because she is strong enough to actually jostle the behemoth of a man. She does note, with no small amount of satisfaction, that he absently rubs at the place she punched him with the hand that just had her pinned against the wall. She slumps over as she tries to catch her breath and make sense of what just happened. 

She looks over at Prince who still seems on edge and confused. She slumps even lower on the wall and holds out her hand as she calls to him softly. He wags his tail slowly at first and then trots over to her. She strokes his head and is pleased that her hands aren’t shaking. After a few moments, she looks up at Frank as he stands in front of her door looking far too big for her hallway. 

“Did I hurt you?” he asks.

She can’t quite see his face, but she can hear the concern. 

“Do you have a gun on you?” she asks evenly instead of answering. 

He raises an eyebrow.

“Always.” 

“May I have it?” 

His eyebrow remains elevated at a near perfect arch.

“Ma’am?” 

“Your gun. May I have it?” 

He leans his back against the door.

“Why?”

She stands up steady legs and silently thanks Matt. 

“So I can shoot you."

“I didn’t mean to scare you, ma’am.”

She looks unimpressed.

“Then next time wait until someone is home before you come in. They call that breaking and entering.” 

“They call sneaking around someone else’s property trespassing," he says crossing his arms. 

She thinks for a moment and then shrugs.

“Touché. Even though I'm curious about how you even got that damn house.” 

As she walks away towards her bedroom, Prince on her heels, she can feel Frank still standing by the door watching her.

“Stop lurking."

There is a lag of about ten seconds before she hears his heavy footsteps as he walks towards the living room. She sticks her head out of her room as he is passing. He glances into her room and his lips twist in mock disgust.

“Dammit, Prince, you’re already on her bed? Fucking suck up.”

Prince pants from his place on top of Karen’s comforter not at all fazed by his human’s faux derision. Karen glances at him and his tail wags. She smiles and then turns back to Frank.

“He ain’t ever gonna leave now, ma’am.”

She eyes him up and down. Again she is floored by his lack of bruises and overall health. Frank Castle looks _normal_ in dark jeans, a dark grey t-shirt and a baseball cap slung low over his eyes. His scruff has grown into a short beard and she will not admit that it's a good look on him because he is Frank after all.

“I’m taking a shower,” she says. “You will not leave before I get out. 

Frank leans against her doorway. He gives her one long, appraising look. She can see the wheels turning, the questions forming and being answered even without him having to ask her anything. Then his eyes roam over her room, over the framed posters, over her colorful bed and the neglected glass of wine from the night before. Then he meets her eyes again.

“You will not leave," she says again.

His head tilts to the side in that way he does sometimes.

“You like bossing me around, yeah?” 

“Aren’t soldiers good at taking orders?” 

This earns a small grin from him.

“For the most part.”

She does not smile back, but she wants to. 

“You can make yourself some coffee. When you hear the shower turn off put on the teakettle.” 

She turns away from him to gather clothes to change into before moving into her bathroom. She is just finished getting dressed when the teakettle starts the low whistle. She wants to run to snatch it off the stove. The whistle dies down as Frank moves it off the burner before she even gets a chance to leave her room. She sweeps her damp hair into a messy knot on top of her head and puts on her glasses. 

For reasons she understands and reasons she does not, her heart races at the prospect of being near Frank again, really talking to him again. And now the engagement is happening in her space and her space is decidedly different than the last time he was in her apartment. _She_ is different than she was the last time they were in her apartment together. Memories of him pushing her to the ground to shield her from a monsoon of bullets come to mind. She stares at her reflection.

 _You are Karen Page, dammit. Fuck his stupid intimidating stare and big muscles. This is your house._  

She finally leaves her room and forces herself to walk casually into her kitchen. She intentionally focuses on making her cup of tea rather than looking at Frank. Prince comes into the kitchen and watches her. How could this dog possibly belong to Frank with its happy disposition and endless affection? She takes her cup of tea into the living room and he follows. 

As she plants herself in her armchair, she takes in the sight of Frank sitting, quite comfortably—too comfortably, on her couch looking at the back of the book she left on her coffee table. 

“This any good?” he asks holding up her copy of _Reading Lolita in Tehran_. 

She nods, a bit surprised.

“Yeah. It’s about a group of female Iranian students who start reading all of these Western classics that are forbidden in Iran. Sort of like this super secret book club. I like it because their stories start to come out as they talk about the books.” 

He regards the book for a bit longer and then nods.

“Feel like I might learn more from this book than I did during all my time over there."

She takes a sip of her tea.

“Did you spend any time in Iran during your deployments?” 

“Nah. Just Afghanistan and Iraq.”

“Guess you don’t really get a whole lot of time to mingle and make friends when you’re at war."

He shrugs.

“Hella busy over there. Making friends with locals is dependent on whether you’re the type to actually wanna know people or just shoot them, ma’am.” 

She eyes him.

“Which one were you?” 

"Shooting people was part of my job description," he says bluntly.

She is surprised that she does not feel the need to shy away from the harsh reality of it.

After a moment he says, “But I wanted to know the people too. Wasn't there to just shoot anybody. Not all the guys cared about that, but I did. Made a few friends over there. Pashto is hard as shit to learn, but I tried.”

She processes that for a few seconds before nodding. She settles further into her chair and wonders why this feels easy, being in her apartment with him. Talking about his deployments. But then hasn’t her relationship with Frank always been a bit easier than it should be given his proclivity for death and destruction. She wonders if he learned that in war or if it was something that was always in him. She is not unaware of his eyes on her as she processes and she wonders if he has a vague idea of what she's thinking about.

“Did I hurt you earlier?” he asks suddenly. “You never answered me.”

She shakes her head, a bit whiplashed at the change in topic.

“No. You didn’t hurt me.” 

He nods and then smirks a moment later. 

“You hit me. Like you knew what you were doing. Like you’ve hit someone that way before.” 

She rolls her eyes. Leave it to Frank to be impressed when someone punches him. 

“Didn’t know it was you. You scared the shit out of me.”

She takes a sip of her tea.

“Probably would have punched me even if you did," he says.

Frank castle sounds proud. She nearly smiles at that. She sobers when she thinks about the last time he had smiled with this sort of pride. She remembers his stories about Frank and Lisa, about how wonderful Maria had been. She doesn't want him to know that she is thinking of them. 

“True. I almost shot you last time you came to my apartment.” 

His smirk only grows.

“Red teach you?” 

She hates that he can guess that.

“You are so annoying. Jesus.”

He leans back into her couch as if he could be any more comfortable.

“So you still friends?”

“Clearly.”

He is silent for a few moments.

“But not your boyfriend, huh?”

“Not in the mood for a lecture or you oversimplifying my decision to not be with him.”

He studies her. She lets him as she drinks her tea. She does not owe Frank Castle an explanation about her relationships, especially not her relationship with Matt. It was none of his business, especially if he is going to make assumptions and erroneously believe that he had the monopoly on good love advice.

“You have information for me?” she asks.

Any playfulness or levity he exhibited earlier is gone immediately. She regrets bringing it up even if she shouldn't.

“I’ve been tailing you.”

“Why?”

He gives her a look.

“To see if anyone else was too.” 

Her heart rate increases.

“And?”

“Nobody. Not that I noticed and I would have. They've laid off of you for now.”

She feels more fear than relief, but she feels some relief too. 

“You hear from them again?” he asks.

She shakes her head.

“No. Nothing.”

“And you’re absolutely sure nobody followed you to my place?” he asks, though he hardly seems worried about it. 

“As sure I can be as someone with no tactical experience. I was very careful,” she says. 

He nods and studies her some more. She pictures the articles and letters in the bottom of her dresser drawer. She has the urge to ask him if he went through her things before she got home. 

“How long were you here before I got back?” she asks warily. 

He meets her gaze.

“I was here when you left.” 

“What? In my apartment?” she asks sitting up straighter.

Prince looks up from his spot by Frank’s feet at the pitch in her voice.

He rolls his eyes.

“Outside, ma’am.”

“Did you follow me after I left?”

"You got good running form." 

She throws her hands up in exasperation.

“Great. How did you get back here before me?”

“Left to come back here before you did. Wanted to see how easy it was to break into your place.”

“Apparently very easy.”

“Too easy, ma’am. To get in and to follow you without you knowing. You really should be more aware of your surroundings,” he says looking around her apartment as if for emphasis.

She raises an eyebrow.

“You gonna teach me tactical skills, Frank?”

“Yes, ma’am. Partly why I’m here. Been following you for a week and you never noticed.”

This floors her.

“You came here to teach me how to spot a tail?"

“I came to teach you how to spot people like me who are following you. You know how to spot the ones who ain’t as good at it as I am,” Frank says. 

“Yes, well most of the people who follow me don’t have military training,” she mutters, hiding the fact that she is a little excited. 

“Which means I’ll teach you better than anyone else can. ‘Cept for Red probably.” he says shrugging at the small concession. 

“Have you always been such a smug bastard?” Karen asks. 

He smiles very lightly.

“Only sometimes, ma’am.” 

“God, Prince, how do you put up with him?” she asks as he wags his tail at her.

“I feed him,” Franks says patting Prince on the back and receiving an appreciative lick. 

She sighs and holds the bridge of her nose in annoyance. Then she really considers her options or really the lack thereof. Frank was a masterful tactician. She had accepted his help with her current predicament but would he always be around to spot the crazies before they could get to her? Why not let Frank give her some tips about being vigilant? 

“Fine. What do I need to do?” she asks.

He is irrefutably pleased by her compliance. He eyes her and she sees that something is different. Something voracious has blossomed in him. He looks like a predator getting ready to go on a hunt. There is a glint in his eye and something coiled deep inside of him ready to be unrolled.

“Change your shirt and put on sneakers. The jeans are fine.”

She looks down at her loose peplum top and bare feet. She briefly entertains the thought of repainting her toes later before she refocuses.

 “Change my shirt to what?"

“Do you even own a t-shirt, Page?” he scoffs.

They were back to Page now. Karen gets the distinct impression that she is not looking at Frank Castle or even the Punisher. No, standing before her is Captain Frank Castle, fully capable Marine and decorated war hero. He would respect her boundaries, but if she gave him permission he would test them.

She stands up warily.

“Did I just become a new recruit?” 

The man laughs, actually laughs. It is hoarse and scratchy from disuse and does funny things to her stomach. It makes her chest feel heavy thinking about the man he was once, the man he might be now if his family was alive.

“You giving me permission to boss you around?” he asks.

For some reason, this question almost makes her blush. It most certainly should not. 

“You would love that wouldn’t you?”

He shrugs.

“I’m a gentleman, ma'am. Won’t give you anything you don’t ask for.”

She can appreciate that this conversation in another setting with two other human beings could be rather evocative. But now his smile is gone and he genuinely looks like he is gathering her consent before he does anything that may be crossing a line. Except all the lines are slowly, but surely being redrawn anyway and have been since the day she stepped across that red line in the hospital. Now it can’t just be this side and that side. There is that knotty and perplexing zone in the middle that seems the only feasible place where she can exist with Frank. Fuck his propensity for confusing her with his fierce anger and love for punishment, for his affectionate dog and his interest in her book about Iranian women. Fuck the way he looks at her when she tells him not to go easy on her as she goes to change her clothes.

Fuck him for being so complicated.


	5. Resignation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frank as a teacher? This should be fun. Or something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, lovelies. Let's face it. The break in this story has been egregiously long. For that, I am so sorry. It should come as no surprise that this story is wildly AU at this point. The good news is that The Punisher canon has coincided with some of where I was going with the story which is fun. I hope that you enjoy chapter five. Thank you for still being invested despite the hiatus.

At some point, Karen realizes that her life makes the most sense when things are at the peak of absurdity. It can only be described as comical, really. She is quite used to interacting with normality as a theoretical concept, as more of a distant reality. There was nothing standard or traditional about her life back in Vermont, the way her brother died, why he died. There is not a single thing conventional about being friends with vigilantes and writing stories about some of the most nightmare-inducing shit happening in New York City.

Karen’s life made the most sense in the context of the grossly unusual. This is precisely why Karen found herself waltzing down the street with the Punisher on her heels as if it was the most sensible thing to do. She had resigned herself to the risk and incongruity of Frank Castle the first time she met him.

It makes no sense, really. One day she will have to deal with this for what it is: fucking ridiculous.

______ 

Out of the (relative) safety of her apartment, Karen feels a lot less thrilled about Frank’s plan. Yeah, it looks like rain and the people passing by are unconcerned with the large man standing at the bottom of the stairs. Still, she does not share their incurious nature. She hardly can because that man is Frank. He is, by all accounts, supposed to be dead and someone that knows far too much about her is following her. Or had been at least.

“You’re not worried about being recognized?”

She remains a few steps above him because going back inside is still very much on the table for her. Frank leans against the porch with his hands in his pockets. His eyes sweep lazily up and down the block.

“Would you recognize me?”

She would.  Of course, _she_ would. Would the average New Yorker? No, not likely. They would misidentify him because they were likely emotionally stable human beings who did not make acquaintances out of preternatural killers.

She just raises an eyebrow at him. He senses her hesitation and turns to regard her. He inspects her face and the way her eyes dart between him and the people passing by. 

“Ma’am.”

She has yet to determine the pattern that is his use of the word ma’am versus her last name. She knows for sure that he never calls her Karen. She stares down at him.

“Is this a repeat of the time you used me as bait?”

A crease forms between his eyebrows. She can see that he is just the tiniest bit dazed by the question. His gaze is unwavering as it meets her own.

“No ma’am.”

She believes him. They never lie to each other. It was their _thing,_ had been since the beginning. Frank had been the one to set the trend with his directness, never feeling the need to twist the truth for her. She had just followed suit and been appreciative. She nods.

“Don’t ever do that again. If something is up, you tell me.”

He gives her a single nod. There is no posturing, no defense of his actions. He merely absorbs the words and the lingering indignation behind them.

“Yes, ma’am.”

His surrender neutralizes her anger. She puts her purse across her body. The weight of her gun is comforting and familiar against her thigh. She joins him on the sidewalk and mirrors the way his eyes roam up and down the street. He turns to her. 

“Tell me what you see.”  

Her surprise at his direction is probably unwarranted. The plan was to train her, after all. She feels nervous. She looks up and down the street. There are people passing by, most with eyes on their phones or a newspaper. She notes the elderly woman on her balcony watering plants. It seems gratuitous given the likelihood of rain. A man on the opposite side of the street jogs by a woman in a floral dress. They make eye contact briefly and the man continues on his way. She dictates what she sees to Frank. He nods and she realizes that he has been watching her.

“Keep going.”

She frowns as she looks up and down the street again, more slowly this time. She had mainly been paying attention to the people the first time. She categorizes them and tucks them away into a mental file.

She prioritizes the cars this time. Most of them are empty. Except one. She can hear the low rumble of a car further down the street. When she looks more closely she can see a long ponytail swaying and hands gesticulating wildly. There was a woman in the car probably talking on the phone.

Karen keeps looking and notes which cars she recognizes, including the old Honda that has been parked in the same spot for weeks.  She knows it belongs to a guy in the building across the street. They often end up on the same train going to work. Again she shares what she sees with Frank, who is leaning against the stoop with his arms loosely crossed over his chest.

“Good. What about the windows?” he asks.

“The car windows?”

He jerks his chin upwards. She follows the motion and takes in the building windows. She catalogs which ones are open and closed, the sounds of music and television spilling out. She feels like she should be looking for something specific.

“Look for movement,” he says as if he reads her thoughts.

She does. She sees people in some of the windows doing mundane things like smoking a cigarette. She is about to say this to Frank when she sees it. She waits about sixty seconds before she sees it again. She smiles. 

“Seems like our friend in the floral dress has an admirer,” she says.

“Have you ever seen her before?” Franks asks. 

Karen nods.

“A few times.” 

“Which means she probably lives in that building. The guy peeking out the window every sixty seconds is probably her boyfriend.”

She replies with a snort.

“Or some guy that wants to get in her pants.”

“The guy jogging has looped around this block three times since we’ve been out here.”

She blinks. That had definitely escaped her notice. She replays the way the woman had looked at the man as he had passed by her. They hadn’t spoken but there had been a brief flash of familiarity in the look.

“You think she’s cheating with the guy jogging?”

He shrugs.

“If so, they aren’t being very subtle. Boyfriend could be an asshole. We don’t know.”

“But we do know the guy has gone past three times and that means something.”

He nods. 

“Take everything in and figure out if it means bad news for you. If it ain’t gonna get you shot, stabbed or blown up…”

“Or raped.”  

She says it so glibly and she realizes, as it comes out of her mouth, that it will discompose him. It should scare them both that she knows to predict the way his eyes dart back and forth, the brief flare of his nostrils. The clench of his jaw does nothing to surprise her. He gives a measured roll of his neck as if to clear unwanted images and anchor himself.

“Yeah, well, if some asshole decides to try some shit like that, it’ll be a bad fucking day for him.”

Frank is intolerably perceptive but there is no way he could know how close to home his statement is. Her stomach lurches as she thinks of the notes crammed into the bottom of her drawer. She thinks of Vermont, of her brother, of her small town and its secrets. She thinks of her secrets. She looks down the street so she doesn’t have to look at him. It really is implausible but he has this clairvoyance about him and she worries that he’ll just _know_ if he looks at her for too long.

“We done people watching?” she asks.

He takes his time responding and it prompts her to look at him. She feels dread at the way his eyes seem to burrow beneath her evasion. Her fear seems significantly less irrational. She frowns and takes a step away from him but he doesn’t look away. He does a slow sweep of her face. How the fuck does he manage to leave her feeling so exposed and vulnerable without even speaking? Frank can wield his gazes in much the same way she might wield a carefully worded question to a source or interviewee.

“Yeah.” 

She furrows her brows because she had almost forgotten that she’d asked him a question. She clears her throat.  His eyes flick down to where she wipes her hands on her jeans.

“What now?” 

“Got your .380 on you?”

She nods and pats her bag. He nods in approval. He turns his eyes to the street. His next instructions send a jolt of adrenaline up her spine. He tells her to pick a place, without telling him what it is, and go to it. He plans to follow her and see if she notices him and if she can evade him. She blinks in response. 

“I’m not going to get away from you.”

“Probably not,” he says.

She looks at him in confusion.

“So then why am I trying to get away from you?”

His lips quirk. 

“New recruits don’t ask this many questions.”

She remembers her rules for training with Matt. They probably would serve her well with Frank too. She straightens her shoulders.

“Okay. I’ve got a place.”

“Good. I’ll give you a three-minute head start.  Keep your eyes open. Be careful.”

She gives him a lazy salute.

“Sir, yes, sir.”

“Stop being a smartass.”

The rebuke is half-hearted at best. She smiles and turns in the direction of her designated spot. He surprises her by grabbing her wrist as she begins to walk away. His hands are warm and calloused. His grip is firm and he pulls her back towards him easily, so easily. It feels like her breath gets snagged in her lungs for a brief moment. She looks down at his hand but he tugs on her wrist again to urge her to look at him. She does.

“Be careful, Karen.”

This is the first time he has said her name. She finds that it rolls off his tongue with ease and it feels natural to hear him say it. She notes the way his thumb distractedly rubs circles against her pulse. She doesn’t look down because she thinks he’ll realize that he’s doing it and stop. There is so much to be said about the fact that she is even worried about him stopping. There is a fuck ton to be said about that fact.

“Okay.”

He nods and pulls his hand away. There is no use in her prevaricating to herself that she wanted him to stop. She lets her arm slowly return to her side.

“I’m right behind you. Even if you can’t see me.”

She understands that he wants her to know that she's safe. He was an asshole for using her as bait but he has also saved her life on more than one occasion. She might not be safe from her errant emotions when she’s around him but she knows that Frank would protect her if she needed it. She nods and starts to head in the direction of the bookstore she’s chosen. She has trouble discerning the cause of her rapid heartbeat. Or maybe she knows exactly why and just tells herself that she doesn’t. 

She can’t be sure whether he actually gives her a head start because he stays completely out of sight. She employs several clever (by her standards) devices to get a read on him: the small cosmetic mirror in her purse, the side view mirrors of cars, roughly bumping into a woman just so she would have an excuse to turn around. When attempts to spot him fail she does her best to evade him, though how she can evade a man she can’t even see is beyond her.

She keeps her eyes open for other things out of the ordinary too. She looks into the faces of strangers and wonders if they are the threat that just hasn’t materialized yet. She feels overwhelmed with the sheer amount of vigilance required to keep her past from behind exhumed for the world to see.

It starts raining and she opens her navy umbrella to protect herself against the torrent. As she is coming up on a corner store she gets an idea. She sees a group of teenagers go into the store and she ducks in after them. She quickly purchases a cheap black umbrella and a black beanie. She stuffs as much of her hair under the hat as she can manage before the teenagers have finished making their purchase. She follows them out of the store, having already swapped her navy umbrella for the black one. After a few blocks, they take the stairs down to the subway station. She follows them, waits a few minutes, and then exits on the other side of the street. Still, she sees no sign of Frank and has no idea if her little plan even worked.

She makes it to the bookstore in fifteen minutes. It occurs to her that Frank never told her what to do when she got to her destination. She could wait for him or just head back to her apartment. If she had managed to evade him, and she _strongly_ doubts that she has, he would likely just go back to her place. She settles on waiting because it’s Saturday, she just trudged fifteen minutes in the rain, and she loves this place. She orders an herbal tea and peruses the shelves. She is examining the back of some science fiction novel when the skin on the back of her neck prickles. She barely has time to look up before he speaks.

“Nice trick with the umbrella. It was clever.”  

She takes a sip of her tea.

“Not clever enough, obviously.”

He shrugs.

“I been doin’ this a long time.”

She looks him over. He seems as sedate as he did when they were in front of her building. His hands are still in his pockets and his hat is pulled down low over his eyes. She notes that his clothes aren’t as wet as she expected them to be given that he had foregone an umbrella. He bobs his head towards the book in her hand.

“Any good?”

This is the second time he has inquired about the quality of a book. She thinks back to the bookshelf she saw in his living room. She hands him the book with an arched brow.

“You like to read?”

He shrugs.

“Yeah. Passes the time.”

She tilts her head. Her lips curve in a slow smile.  

“Did you…”

She lets the sentence trail off. He looks at her. She can see him intuiting that she wants to ask him about his life before. He looks back down at the book in his hands: _The Three Body Problem_. His face goes soft the way it does whenever he feels like sharing about his family.

“Started reading when I was a kid. Always had a taste for it, yeah. Used to, uh, used to read to Maria when I was home. She said she liked the sound of my voice, you know.”

His eyes dart from the book to the other patrons in the store, to her, and then back to the book. He runs a thumb over the back cover. One side of his mouth quirks up in an approximation of that crooked grin he gets at times.

“Hell, sometimes I’d even pretend I didn’t want to, right, but I used to eat that shit up and she knew it. She knew it.”

She can picture it. She imagines Frank sitting on the couch, the same one she had stalked past when she had broken into his house, with Maria’s head cradled in his lap. She can see him running his hand through her hair as the words flow from his lips, rough baritone falling like a caress around her. Karen smiles to hide the fact that her heart tightens painfully. She leans her hip against the bookshelf, careful to keep her full weight off it.

“Bet you totally ate that shit up.” 

He chuckles, soft and low. 

“Yeah.”

She nods towards the book in his hands. He looks at it as if he had forgotten that he was holding it. She taps the back cover.

“That won the Hugo award. It was recently translated from Chinese into English. I haven’t read it yet but I hear it’s very good if you’re into alien invasions and the like.”

He hums and she expects him to hand it back to her or reshelve it. She is pleasantly surprised when he continues to hold onto it, reading the back cover. She can’t tell if he’s still with her or if he’s been swept away into a memory. She sips her tea and waits. Her thoughts drift back to the couch and the warmth, the sense of safety that only seems to elude him now.

“You’re good. You kept your eyes open and you weren’t too obvious about looking for me. Well, to someone who doesn’t expect you to be looking for ‘em.”

She blinks in confusion. She had been drawn so far away from the reason they were even here in the first place. The lingering image of Frank and Maria disappears. It bites in a way that confounds and flusters her. The shame of it feels hot and sticky against her skin so she turns towards the shelf under the pretense of looking for another book. She runs her fingers down the length of a book’s spine and speaks with her back to him. 

“I could never see you." 

He remains quiet for a few moments but she keeps her eyes forward. She blindly pulls a book off the shelf just to give her something to look at. She opens it and starts reading the prologue. She reads the same sentence three times before he speaks again.

“Tell me why.”

“What?”

He gently puts his hand on her arm and turns her towards him. He raises an eyebrow at her book choice. She finally looks at the cover and sees the busty brunette in the arms of some ripped man with long hair. Good lord. 

“Doesn’t seem like your speed,” he says. 

She arches her own eyebrow.

“Guilty pleasure. Pun intended.”  

She can only describe his look as startled at first, both eyebrows raised in surprise at her brazenness.  His surprise eventually gives way to mirth and he grins. He plucks the book from her hand and ignores her faux protest as he puts the book back. She smacks his chest with the back of her hand but smiles. He catches her hand before she can pull it away. He runs his thumb over one of her callouses from her training. The hum he lets out is thoughtful and fascinated. For the second time, warmth settles over her skin at his touch. She lets air flow slowly from between her lips. He swipes his thumb over her calloused hand once more before releasing her. His expression neutralizes and he folds his arms over his broad chest. 

“Tell me why you didn’t see me.”

The style of his teaching is becoming more clear to her. She holds it in tandem with the way Matt trains her and isn’t surprised that they are so disparate. Matt gives her all the information upfront, tells her how to process and apply it. It would piss her off in any other setting except it works for what they’re doing. Truth is, Matt has far more experience than she does in combat. Frank is different in how he handles her. Frank draws her attention to the information already presented, gives her a nudge here and there, makes her interpret it for herself and then he corrects any erroneous conclusions. It is so decidedly like Frank and so consistent with the way he has always regarded her: like she can set the world on fire just as much as he can.

She looks him over quickly.

“You stayed inside of buildings at some points, maybe under awnings or something. You don’t have an umbrella or coat but you’re not as soaked as you should be.” 

He nods.  

“Good.”

Something still confuses her. Sure, staying perched in the entrances of stores would keep him from getting wet but at some point, his vantage point would be compromised the further she moved away. She voices this to him and he looks almost impressed.

“Explain it to me then, Page.”

She purses her lips. She decides to process aloud. She puts herself in his place as he pursued her. He has to be as familiar with this city as he is with a gun. He knows the side streets and alleys, knows the possible directions she could be going and even the ways she might not choose to go. There would always be at least one direction she couldn’t reasonably go in and that was back towards him. He likely never stayed near a building long enough to lose sight of her, just long enough to not be seen. If he did lose her, it wouldn’t be for long. He would just need to wait for her to materialize and know to anticipate a change in her appearance if she was clever enough.

He listens without speaking or indicating whether or not her assessment is right. He keeps his arms folded and head tilted, eyes sometimes following her hands as she gesticulates. She pauses once when someone squeezes past them and only continues when the person has wandered off further down the aisle. She turns back to Frank with a helpless shrug.  

“Am I even close?”

He pulls her cup away and takes a sip. His nose scrunches and she assumes he doesn’t like it until he takes another sip. Then another, unconcerned with the fact that her lips had just been where his lips are now.  

“S’good.”

“Glad you like it.”

“What kind of tea is this?”

She tells him and receives a low hum in return. He takes a final sip before giving it back. She has two options: make this weird or go with it. Her life is plenty odd already and her relationship with Frank manages to be ponderous while remaining indefinable. She decides to just go with it. Her eyes meet his as she takes a sip from the same place he did.  

“So was I right or not?”

He blinks slowly, eyes dim, and clears his throat.

“Bout what, Page?" 

“How you stayed out of sight without losing my trail.”

He comes back to himself then though she has no idea where he disappeared to in the first place. The casualness of his behavior leads her to believe that he isn’t as affected by his actions as she is. She sees a flash of long brown hair, a playful smile, and hears the sound of boisterous children in the background. A life past lived. A life that did not and does not belong to her. She thinks of his reticence when she showed up at his house. It sobers her. It makes her focus on the reason why she had sought him out in the first place. She steps away from him. He must notice the sudden distance but doesn't say anything. 

“Yeah, you’re right. The trick is to think ahead and be opportunistic at the same time. Know which ways you can walk home and then have five other routes you can take if you need to. Use what’s around you when you have to like the way you went into the store and bumped into that woman.”

“Noticed that did you?”

“Mirror was a nice touch.”

“I was pleased with myself.”

“Bet you were.”

She resists the urge to hit him again. Their tactile quota has been met for the day. She flips him off instead.

“Cute, Page.”

He trails behind her silently as she goes through an endless cycle of examining books only to put them back on the shelf. She ends up returning to where she picked up the book Frank is still holding in his hands. She grabs another copy and heads to the register. She places it on the counter and is prepared to pay for it when Frank adds his commandeered copy on the counter and tells the woman that he will pay for both. Karen pinches his side as hard as she can.  

“No, he won’t,” she says.

“Ignore her, ma’am. I will. Ow. Jesus, woman." 

He grabs her hand and holds it against his stomach. The woman rings them up with a knowing look and Karen wants to tell her that it’s really not what she thinks. She keeps her mouth shut as the woman bags the books separately and hands one to Karen. Frank pulls her out of the store before she can make the woman give him a refund for her book.

She expects the walk back to her apartment to be silent. Comfortable and quiescent. Frank capitalizes on the walk back by using it as a training opportunity. She listens attentively and makes note of everything he points out: the fact that some corner stores sell box cutters which make a convenient weapon, the shifts that cops might take during certain parts of the day, and what times of day the street might be the busiest with people which should generally work to her advantage.

His voice is measured and sure. Nothing about his instruction should be poetic but his cadence still feels rhythmic. She feels ensconced by his low-pitched voice and the smell of his soap. Irish Spring. It’s traditional and so damn Frank it almost makes her laugh. They walk closely as they share an umbrella. It feels undemanding and simple even if their closeness is only a semblance of something tranquil.

Prince takes several laps around her apartment when they come in. Karen laughs. Frank sighs but she can see the fondness he tries to obscure with his firm tone. Prince must know too because he sprawls at Frank’s feet and Frank lovingly scratches his belly, much to Prince’s delight. Karen leaves the two to take off her shoes and let her hair down.

The feeling is lazy in the way it undulates from the pit of her stomach and travels upward. She has trouble grasping it at first. She shoves a hand through her hair and waits for it to pass. Then Prince is pushing his head into her hand and the feeling swells and settles heavy in her chest. She knows how this goes, knows that her apartment will be empty soon. No dog and no Frank.

Why should that matter? Her apartment void of Frank Castle is normal. Their relationship is a lot of things but it is definitely not normal. It should hardly bother her that he has to go home. He has no right to pain her with his coming and goings and she has no right to be bothered by them.

It bothers her. It fucking bothers her. 

She doesn’t say that to him. Instead, she pulls out a map of Hell’s Kitchen that she bought when she first moved to New York. She spreads it across her table and he comes to look over her shoulder. She ignores his closeness and the way she feels about it. _Show me all the routes you’ve mapped out from my job to my apartment_ , she tells him. _I know you already have some_. He looks at her. She raises an eyebrow. He grunts and drags her finger over the different routes until she can repeat them back to him without looking at the map. Despite his previous lingering touches, he pulls his hand away as soon as he is satisfied with her memorization. He moves away and she turns to watch him tether Prince to his leash. He stands up straight and meets her gaze.

“I’m still looking for them, Karen. Just cause you ain’t heard from them don’t mean I stopped trying to find them.”

She nods.

“I know. I know, Frank.”

He nods too.

“Okay.”

“Thank you.”

He scrunches his nose and shakes his head.

“Don’t do that. You don’t thank me.”

“I owe you that. At least.”

“You don’t owe me shit, Karen.”

His voice catches on her name. It makes the feeling flare up again. She walks towards him, expects him to back away, but walks with more purpose when he holds his position. Her arms go around his neck without hesitation or indecision. Her boldness isn’t even startling to her because she needs this from him, _wants_ it. What astonishes her is how easily one of his arms wraps around her torso and his other hand presses determinedly into her back, lips pressed against the juncture of her neck and shoulder.

It doesn’t feel like hours that they are pressed against each other. It doesn’t even feel like minutes. She holds onto him for less than sixty seconds but she feels every single second against him. When she finally pulls away he seems puzzled as if he had forgotten where he was.

For a second, one brief and stomach-sinking moment, she assumes that he had imagined that she was Maria and is now disappointed to find her standing there. She wouldn’t be angry with him. She would understand. She would because Karen Page is _no_ Maria Castle. She would be more distressed on his behalf, at the shame he would likely feel, than anything else. At least that’s what she tells herself because this whole thing is already complicated enough.

He dissuades her of the notion when he runs a knuckle across her chin and then under it. He kisses her cheek softly. Now, she’s the one dazed and Prince licks her hand as Frank leads him to the door.

“I put my number in your phone. Under the name Pete Castiglione.”

“You’re Italian?”

He pauses at the door.

“Yeah.”

“Pete though?”

He graces her with a rare smirk.

“I don’t look like a Pete?”

“More like a Francis.” 

“Be careful, Page.”

“You got it, Francis.” 

She can hear him grumbling as he closes the door. She collapses onto her couch as soon he does. She calls a locksmith on Monday. She has far better locks on her door and windows by Tuesday night. She gets a text that same night.

 **_I approve_** **.**

She smiles like the idiot she must be.  


End file.
